John Albert Taylor raped and killed a young Washington Terrace girl and was later executed by a Utah firing squad. But years before, he had raped a Florida woman. And years before that, while growing up in Roy, authorities say he was throwing live puppies against a garage door so he could hear the sound.

The studies and their message have been presented to Utah lawmakers for several years. Each time, Kamper says, the effort to boost penalties for the worst of the worst cases has been opposed, mostly by rural lawmakers who fear it would interfere with the business of raising livestock, or hunting.

The lawmakers' reluctance confuses former Utahn Stephan Otto, because Utah shares the cowboy ways of neighbors such as Wyoming. Leaders in that state saw fit to pass the provision.

Otto, who is head of legislative affairs for the Animal Legal Defense Fund, conducts an annual survey assessing the laws of the nation's 50 states regarding animal cruelty. Utah ranks among the five states having the least-stringent laws in the nation.

Kamper and her colleagues took that information to Utah's Capitol Hill, pushing hour after hour during the session to get Henry's Law passed. They circulated thousands of petitions but failed. Kamper turned to a new petition asking for a special session but says she has been politely rebuffed. Try again next year.

"They don't know what I have been through," she says. "They have not been in my shoes."

Those shoes, she says, meant clawing through the final stages of a deteriorating marriage and fending off the jealousies of a husband bitter over her affection for a Chihuahua mix.

"I wasn't aware of a lot of (apparent dog abuse) because I was at work," she says.

The clues included discovering bite marks on the dog's face. She says she thinks her former husband used to bite the animal in the face hard enough to cause sores.

If Henry was in her lap when the couple was sitting on the couch, it was an issue. If she took the dog for a walk, it was an issue.

"I'd tell him to come walk with us. He wouldn't," she said.

Increasingly suspicious, she warned Vincent that if anything happened to Henry, their marriage was over.

The response?

"You love that dog more than me."

One day, she came home to find the dog injured with burns. After pressing for an answer, she was told the dog had been placed in the oven.

"I saw a side of (my husband) I had never seen before."

By the weekend, she had left.

Critics of bolstering animal-cruelty penalties say that such a provision would suggest a pet's life is valued above that of a spouse, a child, a neighbor. If you hit your spouse, for instance, it's only a misdemeanor.

So if you hit your dog, it's a felony? Not so.

"We're not talking about that," said Anne Davis, a supporter of Henry's Law and co-founder of helpushelpthem.