CHARLESTON, S.C. - South Carolina remains among the nation's deadliest states for women, according to a new report.
The Violence Policy Center looked at 2016 homicide data, which it said showed 48 women were murdered by men in South Carolina that year, a rate of nearly two women killed per 100,000 people.
The Washington, D.C.-based organization said South Carolina ranks sixth among states for its rate of women killed by men. The state has been in the top 10 for that benchmark for the two decades the Violence Policy Center has compiled its annual study.
The Post and Courier reports that domestic violence drives most of the bloodshed. Ninety-five percent of the South Carolina women knew their killers, and 69 percent were slain by current or former husbands or boyfriends, according to the report.
The fatality rate inched slightly down, with South Carolina dropping from the fifth-place spot it held among states a year earlier, according to the report.
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