06-08-2025
Bordertown domestic violence murder prompts calls for more funding in regional SA
A domestic violence murder and suicide in a small South Australian town has highlighted gaps in victim-survivor services, an advocate says.
Police said a 41-year-old woman was murdered by her partner, a 47-year-old man, before he took his own life at their home in Bordertown on Sunday.
Major Crime detectives attended the scene throughout Monday, but there is no other suspect in relation to the deaths.
Bordertown has a population of 3,000 and is located near the Victorian border in South Australia's south east.
Susie Smith is the co-chair of the state's peak domestic violence services body Embolden and Centacare's regional manager of domestic violence services.
She said the town's location, 180 kilometres north of the regional city of Mount Gambier and 270 kilometres east of Adelaide, made it difficult to reach victim-survivors.
"We have been advocating for many years for more services that are less centralised," she said.
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Centacare has been running outreach programs in Bordertown and the surrounding area since 2023, while most of its staff are based in Mount Gambier.
She said these outreach programs in smaller, isolated towns could be successful if they were appropriately funded and resourced.
"We have the evidence these programs are making a big difference," Ms Smith said.
"We've worked really closely with the community of Bordertown and Naracoorte, and we've done some healthy relationships and recognising domestic violence within communities, workplaces and cultural gathering places.
Police on Monday said they had been in contact with the man earlier in the year after a previous domestic violence incident, but that there were no court-imposed restrictions on his contact with the woman.
Asked about the incident on ABC Radio Adelaide, SA Police Commissioner Grant Stevens said the force would review its interactions with the pair before their deaths.
"It's not appropriate for me to speculate on the relationship or involvement SA Police had with that family; it's something we look at," he said.
"I suppose there are potential circumstances where police could have done more; I'm not saying that's the case at this point in time, but we will be certainly looking at that.
A leader at the Bordertown Islamic Community Centre, Hassan Mahmood, said the town's migrant community was resilient, but the murder-suicide had devastated it.
"It will have a ripple effect. First of all, people culturally here are not used to it, and the children are grown and in a different environment here," Dr Mahmood said.
"It's the kind of thing that will have a long-lasting effect."
Ms Smith said Centacare's domestic violence support workers had been in Bordertown this week to mourn with the Islamic community.
"We absolutely admire [them] for what they bring to the South East and the community of Bordertown. We are truly very saddened for them," she said.
