A charge has been laid against a 33 year-old man in relation to a homicide earlier this week in Richmond.
On Friday morning, Richmond RCMP were called to a residential unit on Capstan Way near Sexsmith Road for a report of a woman suffering from serious injuries.
She was taken to hospital, but later died of her injuries.
The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team says 33-year-old George Dragnea of Richmond now faces one count of second-degree murder.
According to police, the victim and accused were in a relationship and neither individual had a history of intimate partner violence reported to them.
It is the fourth instance of intimate partner violence turned deadly in B.C. in the last three weeks.
While police said there is no ongoing risk to the public, Angela Marie MacDougall with Battered Women’s Support Service is questioning that notion.
“In general, killings such as this where intimate partner violence is suspected, they are treated as one-offs,” she said. “It’s [the organization’s] job to recognize the pattern and to highlight the pattern and what we have here is a pattern.”
“We know 48 per cent of girls and women in the province of British Columbia have experienced at least one form of intimate partner violence so the risk continues.”
IHIT says no further details will be shared as the matter is now before the courts.