Domestic Violence Deaths Are Rising in N.C. Could a Registry Stop Them?

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Just after midnight on July 9, Shakira Schenck woke to find a man kicking in her apartment door. Police allege her son’s father, Jehaaz-Akil Khaliq Echoles, broke into her Pineville home and rushed to the boy’s bedroom. “Get outta my way!” he shouted.

Schenck called 911. She told the dispatcher Echoles had closed the door to the room where Khalil, 5, was sleeping.

“He’s shaking the bed,” Schenck said, her voice quivering. A moment later, she was sobbing and screaming. “Stop! That’s my baby! He’s hurting my baby!” 

When she opened the door, Khalil was covered in blood. He’d been stabbed in the neck, head, and arms, and he didn’t respond when she tried to wake him. He was rushed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Echoles, who is now awaiting trial for murder, had a lengthy history of domestic violence allegations. According to the district attorney’s filings, he had a previous conviction for domestic violence, and three additional DV charges involving other women had been filed against him in the seven months before the stabbing. In 2020, he was charged with strangulation—a crime experts say is a significant risk factor for domestic violence homicide.  (The strangulation charge  was dismissed due to insufficient evidence.)

“If we don’t address this, it’s never going to stop. Operating in the shadows has made it worse.”

State Sen. Woodson Bradley

Khalil’s death was part of a disturbing trend. The number of domestic violence-related homicides in North Carolina rose 64% in the past decade, from 99 in 2015 to 162 in 2025. Nationally, the FBI reports the percentage of violent crimes involving domestic relationships rose 2% between 2020 and 2024, including more than 11,400 murders. While the FBI report didn’t list how many of those perpetrators had records, a number of studies have shown that 15% to 60% of men convicted of intimate partner violence reoffend.

Some of this rise in violence began during the COVID-19 pandemic. After lockdowns started in 2020, domestic violence increased in the U.S. by 8%, according to a meta-analysis by the nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice. The study’s authors theorized that the pandemic exacerbated factors associated with domestic violence, such as rising unemployment, stress associated with child care, and increased financial insecurity. 

This trend alarmed state Sen. Woodson Bradley (D-Mecklenburg) enough to back a controversial solution: a registry for anyone convicted of domestic violence at least twice. It’s similar to the idea of a sex offender registry, except in North Carolina sex offenders remain on the list for 30 years to life; in this case, the number of years on the list would be lower.

The concept is not entirely new—Tennessee created a similar registry this year, and a state representative from Rockingham proposed one in legislation last April. But Bradley’s would be the first to bar offenders from joining dating apps or possessing guns while on the list. (She has not yet formally introduced a bill but said she plans to in January.) 

It’s unclear how the dating app requirement would be enforced. Match.com screens its paid subscribers to make sure they don’t appear on sex offender registries, but free services, such as Tinder, don’t verify that information. According to a 2019 ProPublica investigation, sex offenders were using those free services. Hinge and Bumble don’t proactively screen for sex offenders or domestic violence, relying on users to police themselves.

Federal law already bans people convicted of certain misdemeanor domestic violence charges from owning guns, and state law requires them to surrender guns while subject to a DV protective order—but police cannot seize them from the scene of an incident. 

“I understand the impetus behind wanting to do something like this. But I think the problem is in its implementation.”

April Burgess-Johnson, Helpmate executive director

“If we don’t address this, it’s never going to stop,” Bradley told The Assembly. “Operating in the shadows has made it worse.”

But the registry idea has its detractors—including groups that advocate for domestic violence survivors. There is no simple solution to a crime as complex as domestic violence, they say. Studies show sex offender registries have mixed results, discouraging people from committing sex crimes in some cases while failing to prevent repeat offenses in others. “I understand the impetus behind wanting to do something like this,” said April Burgess-Johnson, executive director of Helpmate, an advocacy group in Asheville. “But I think the problem is in its implementation.”

Starting Somewhere

Bradley, a Democrat from south Charlotte, made her experience as a domestic violence survivor a cornerstone of her election campaign in 2024. She was “brutally beaten and assaulted” after leaving an abusive boyfriend in the 1990s, she told WCNC. 

Later, Bradley married a man she didn’t know was a convicted sex offender, and it “blew up my business, my life, my children’s life,” she told The Assembly. While dealing with a contentious divorce and custody exchanges, she often felt she and her children were in danger: “There’s no other crime in the world where the victim and the perpetrator … their lives can be entangled over and over again.”

In April, Bradley introduced legislation to make it easier for everyone—including victims of domestic violence—to get divorced. In North Carolina, couples are currently required to live separately for a year before they can divorce. Her bill would shorten that time to six months, and if one spouse has committed a documented act of domestic violence against the other, that separation period would be waived. Bradley also introduced a bill updating the state’s definition of strangulation so that it doesn’t require visible signs of bruising, and the crime is considered a more serious felony. 

She knows a registry is not a comprehensive solution—many offenders are never convicted twice, for example. But, she says, “We’ve got to start somewhere.”

Since 2009, Mecklenburg County has convened a team of people—including police, prosecutors, medical examiners, and social service providers—to review domestic violence fatalities to understand why they happened and how to prevent them. Elyse Hamilton-Childres, who coordinates the team, says they recommend early childhood intervention to prevent abusive behavior, and mental health and substance abuse support for people convicted of domestic violence.

She says offenders like Echoles, whose long arrest record didn’t stop him from committing more crimes, are common. “Criminal justice penalties alone may not create the behavior change that would reduce someone’s violent actions and help improve a victim’s safety,” Hamilton-Childres said.

“Criminal justice penalties alone may not create the behavior change that would reduce someone’s violent actions and help improve a victim’s safety.”

Elyse Hamilton-Childres, coordinator of the Mecklenburg County domestic violence review team

Studies on the effect of legal penalties for domestic violence offer conflicting results. One large-scale review of available research in 2012 put it this way: “Sanctions that follow an arrest for [intimate partner violence] have no effect on the prevalence of subsequent offending.”

Court-ordered intervention programs for offenders also have mixed results, with some approaches slightly reducing recidivism and others having no effect, according to the National Institute for Justice. 

Burgess-Johnson of Helpmate said police officers need better training to recognize the risk factors for domestic violence and when it might turn lethal. Some law enforcement officers don’t know how to recognize which person involved in a dispute is the primary aggressor or which offenders are most likely to be violent again, even though there are established protocols for evaluating that risk. 

Three weeks before Khalil Echoles was killed, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police issued a warrant for his father’s arrest. They charged him with assault for beating a woman—who was not Schenck—with a leather belt. According to the police affidavit, the victim had visible welts on her arm and hip. In answer to the question: “Do you believe the defendant is a danger to himself or others?” the officer checked “No.” 

A Complex Problem

More than a dozen states have introduced legislation to create public registries for repeat domestic violence offenders. Tennessee became the first to pass it into law last year, spurred by the 2022 murder of Savanna Puckett, a sheriff’s deputy who was shot to death and found inside her burning home. 

Days earlier, the 22-year-old had called 911 to report that a man she met on a dating app and had been seeing for a few months was lingering in her driveway. According to her mother, Puckett didn’t know he had been convicted of assaulting a girlfriend in 2019. “If Savanna knew about those previous charges, I know that she would still be here,” her mother, Kim Dodson, told The Assembly.

Dodson began testifying in front of state legislators, pushing for the state to create a registry. To be included, a person had to have at least one prior conviction and then be convicted of a second offense after the registry was established. 

The bill directed $500,000 in state funds to create the registry, which launched in January. By early October, the website had been visited more than 71,600 times. “If I can save one person doing this, I feel like Savanna’s still working,” Dodson said.

Dodson says she’s spoken to people in at least 17 states about establishing their own registries. But she admits Tennessee’s hasn’t been around long enough to know how well it’s working. She’s hoping the state will have data after the first year. 

State Rep. Reece Pyrtle, a Republican retired police chief from Eden, introduced similar registry legislation this past April. Pyrtle did not respond to requests for comment, but his proposal would allow someone with two convictions to have their name removed after two years. After three convictions, they would have to wait five years; more than that, and they would stay on for 10 years after the most recent conviction. His bill does not include a budget for the registry, but offenders would be charged a $150 fee to help the State Bureau of Investigation maintain it.

So far, his measure has bipartisan support from 41 additional sponsors, and Bradley said she would like to work with him. In addition to banning registrants from dating apps, she wants to elevate domestic violence charges, which are misdemeanors, to high-priority warrants. “We can either make this bill better … or look at mine,” she said.

“If I can save one person doing this, I feel like Savanna’s still working.”

Kim Dodson, mother of Savanna Puckett

Advocates are less enthusiastic. Burgess-Johnson, for example, worries that victims could end up on the registry if they are prosecuted for defending themselves. 

Meanwhile, at least 63% of reported intimate partner violence cases do not result in conviction, so a registry would “significantly underrepresent the number of individuals who are abusive and who may pose a danger,” according to the National Network to End Domestic Violence, which generally opposes such registries. 

In Tennessee, the man who killed Savanna Puckett does not appear on the list. James Jackson Conn pleaded guilty to premeditated murder and is now serving a life sentence, but he was convicted  before the registry existed.

Advocates argue that registries could discourage victims from reporting incidents if they fear publicizing their abuser’s name could hurt the family’s ability to earn money. The victim may still live with the abuser or rely on the individual for child support.

Deborah Weissman, law professor and director of the Criminalized Survivor, Detention, and Justice Clinic at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said economic stress is a major risk factor for domestic violence. The idea of a registry, she said, “is not based on any evidence that it deters or prevents violence.” Instead, she endorses state investment in intervention programs and services for victims. 

Focused Deterrence

Advocates prefer programs that aim to prevent violence—an approach that has worked in North Carolina.

In 2009, the city of High Point—home to about 120,500 people—began collaborating with partners at the National Network for Safe Communities on a comprehensive, multipronged deterrence program. 

“For decades we’ve been making women responsible for their own victimization,” David Kennedy, director of the network, said at the time. “We were all but teaching the most serious, chronic offenders that they were going to get away with it.”

The program divides offenders into four risk levels. At the lowest level are cases where police answer a domestic violence call but determine there isn’t enough probable cause to make an arrest. Instead, in they write up a field report. Later, an officer will deliver a letter to the home that makes it clear the police take domestic violence seriously. It lists support resources and says the city doesn’t want either partner to commit a crime that could land them in court. 

If someone is arrested for a first-time DV offense, the program coordinator within the police department visits them in jail and warns them they’re on a watch list maintained by the police. If they reoffend, their name will be flagged so the coordinator can make sure they’re prosecuted to the fullest extent possible. A judge can also order the offender to wear a pretrial ankle monitor so that the victim can be notified if the offender is nearby. 

If that person is arrested for a second act of domestic violence, the coordinator will appear in court to advocate for a higher bond. “If they’re in custody, they’re not hurting their partner,” said the current coordinator, Det. Paul Mustian.

“For decades we’ve been making women responsible for their own victimization.”

David Kennedy, director of the National Network for Safe Communities

For offenders considered to be the highest-level risk—those arrested for strangulation, stalking, or similar crimes—the coordinator convenes a task force that includes law enforcement, child advocates, and prosecutors to discuss ways to approach the case. The offender is moved up to “A-level notification”—meaning if they commit an unrelated crime, such as robbing a store or dealing drugs, they can be prosecuted more severely. The court will be informed of their domestic violence history and the fact that they didn’t respond to warnings from the police to change their behavior.

The program also partners with advocates from the county Family Justice Center to offer services to victims and stay in touch before and after a trial. “If I can get a victim into the [center], they become 90 percent more likely to not only survive but move to thriving after the incident,” Mustian said.

High Point had a total of 17 intimate partner homicides in the four years before the program began. In the seven years after, it had just two. But there have been three so far this year, Mustian said. Each case involved an offender the police knew little or nothing about, so it was hard to do any prevention.

Burgess-Johnson would like Buncombe County to establish a similar intervention team but said the county recently cut the $83,475 annual budget that Helpmate would have used to pay for a coordinator. In the past three years, Helpmate has lost more than $1 million in federal and local funding.

For Bradley, the registry is just one part of her efforts to change how the legal system treats domestic violence.

“I’m sick and tired of reacting to these stories there might have been a way to prevent,” she said.