The spotlight is once again on the specter of intimate partner violence after two shootings in Grand Falls-Windsor last week rocked the community and the entire province.

One woman is in hospital and another is dead following two separate and unrelated incidents in the town.

In the first case, the suspect was later found dead, while 52-year-old Ivan Loder has been charged with first-degree murder in the second case.

RCMP have not revealed any details on the circumstances surrounding the two cases other than to confirm that they were both incidents of intimate partner violence.

The executive director of Violence Prevention Avalon East, Olivia Lynch, says much work has been done on risk assessments to predict escalating violent behaviour.

She says having an array of risk assessments “can really help to predict whether somebody’s in that increased risk.”

Lynch says there are a number of well understood and alarming factors that greatly increase the risk.

They include “if a person is going through a separation, we know that that’s the most dangerous time, when somebody leaves an abusive situation. If a person has been strangled by their intimate partner in the past, that increases risk by 700 per cent.”

She says risks factors include whether a couple shares children that are not biologically their own, (and) if they have access to a gun, whether that be registered, or an illegal gun.”