Week of tragic anniversaries calls attention to family killings in Utah

SALT LAKE CITY — This week holds devastating anniversaries for three communities across Utah, each with a family shot and killed in domestic violence.

Thursday marks eleven years after a family in Spanish Fork was killed by their father; Friday, five years after a teen in Grantsville fatally shot his mother and three siblings.

Friday’s also one month since police found the bodies of members of a West Valley City familydead in their home, along with a teenage son who survived. A similar tragedy occurred just over two years ago in Enoch.

“There’s not a legitimate justification for this behavior at all,” said Sonia Salari, an expert in family violence and professor at the University of Utah.

Salari said while winter holidays can raise a person’s stress level, it’s not clear why these homicides happened around this time of year.

Her national research into killings involving intimate partners shows they can happen at any time. It also shows that perpetrators overwhelmingly use firearms, rather than another weapon.

Those who carry out these crimes tend to fall into two categories, Salari added. The first is those who are primarily homicidal and want to kill a partner.

“People can recognize that one,” Salari said. “There might be a pattern of domestic abuse for that person. Maybe even the police have been involved in responding to a call at that person’s house.”

In the second category, a family member is suicidal and decides to kill loved ones as well, often taking neighbors and friends by surprise.

“They’ll say things like, ‘This hit us from out of the blue. We had no warning sign that this was going to happen,’” Salari said.

Salari has studied family violence at the University of Utah for 30 years and said the United States has gained ground in that time.

One tool that’s helped, she said, is a lethality assessment. Police in Utah are required to use the surveys in responding to cases of intimate partner violence under a 2023 law.

If the survey indicates a person’s in danger, officers then call an advocate, who can help those in abusive situations to create an escape plan, find a new place to stay and get counseling, among other resources.

Working with a victim advocate drastically improves their chance of survival, Salari said, helping to prevent domestic violence homicides and the devastation that follows.

If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts or exhibiting warning signs, call, text, or chat the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 which is answered 24/7/365 by crisis counselors at the Huntsman Mental Health Institute. All calls to legacy crisis hotlines, including the old National Suicide Prevention hotline, 1-800-273-8255, will also connect to a crisis care worker at the Huntsman Mental Health Institute as well.

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