VIDEO: Recent Deaths Put Domestic Violence in Spotlight

OKTIBBEHA and NOXUBEE COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – Marcus Gardner is twenty-two and his girlfriend was twenty-one.

Their story is not uncommon.

Investigators and counselors who work with victims and domestic violence cases say things can get out of hand quickly.

Columbus, Tupelo, Booneville, and now, Brooksville.

All towns with one thing in common, a domestic violence case, which ended with someone dead.

Marcus Gardner’s family says the couple were having problems, but no one expected this.

His aunt says Gardner hasn’t been acting like himself lately.

“He was like on a nervous hype all of the time and you know, he would stay on the go. He’d see me and talk to me like maybe five or ten minutes, you know, he’d tell me he got to go and he’ll be back or whatever,” says Catina Hopkins.

Tina Rogers is the Victims Assistance Director for the District Attorney’s Office in Mississippi’s 16th District.

She says it’s rare that domestic cases end with someone dead.

“It’s violence. It’s domestic. It’s a family situation. Normally, those types of situations don’t lead to murder and a child being shot. However, you never know with domestic violence because those situations are tense and they’re heated and at any given time, anyone could be a victim in that case,” says Rogers.

The department sees over 450 domestic violence cases a year.

The one common thread is, there is no common thread.

“Domestic violence is in a world of its own. Domestic violence can come from a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship, a mother-father relationship, child against parent relationship, and vice versa. It just really depends on the actual situation and whatever was ensuing at that particular time,” says Rogers.

Substance abuse can put an already tense relationship over the edge.

“We all know drugs and alcohol alter our perceptions and sometimes we are more defensive when we are under the influence of those things and that causes things to spiral out of hand and cause domestic violence cases,” says Victims Assistance Coordinator for the District Attorney’s Office in Mississippi’s 16th District, Carley Estes.