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During the council member reports portion of the LaGrange City Council work session on Tuesday, Councilwoman Darby Pippin spoke out against domestic violence after what appears to be domestic violence double murder.

Over the weekend, a man and woman were killed on Fendig Street. The bodies of Jabreka Williams, 38, and Roderick Kennedy, 40, were found shot after firefighters put out a house fire believed to have been intentionally set to cover up their murder.

Since then, police have identified an unnamed suspect who reportedly had been in a relationship with Williams, but the investigation is ongoing.

Pippin said she wanted to take a moment to bring attention to domestic violence.

“It’s not something we talk about a lot. We tend to talk about the crimes, the shootings, and various other [crimes],” Pippin said. “This is a topic that is not particular to one district or another. It affects all socioeconomic backgrounds and all races, and I just think it’s important that we don’t lose sight of the importance of doing everything that we can to prevent these kinds of things from happening.”

“At some point for this lady, the system failed her. There were many, many incidents over the years of her struggles in this relationship with this perpetrator,” Pippin said.

Pippin implored that the police department continue to do danger assessments for high-risk victims and make sure that they have all of the resources available to them. She also asked that a Fatality Review assessment be done to assess from the very beginning of any police encounter that the female victim and suspect had through to the murder.

Pippin said she hopes police will learn what could have been done differently and what should be done differently moving forward.

“All efforts as it relates to any action taken surrounding domestic violence must be grounded in survivor-centered knowledge. It’s so critically important that you hear from the victim and know what their experience was, and sometimes it’s difficult. Most of the time, victims have been through years of abuse leading up to something as bad as this,” Pippin said.

Last year, there were 163 deaths related to domestic violence; 92 of those were victims, 27 were bystanders, and 44 were perpetrators, according to Pippin.

“Fortunately, in 2023, we did not have any in Troup County. Unfortunately, that will not be the case for 2025,” she said.