50 homicides in Utah in '05

Despite the hard work and education efforts of domestic violence counselors, shelter workers and others, 2005 was another tragic year in the number of homicides that escalated out of domestic violence.

Utah registered 50 homicides in 2005, according to records maintained by the Deseret Morning News. That's up from the 42 reported by the Utah Bureau of Criminal Identification in 2004. It's the highest number of homicides since the state's abnormally high year of 69 in 2001.

But the number has remained fairly consistent since 1999, despite population growth. Prior to 1999, Utah's annual number of homicides, according to BCI, hovered around 60 slayings for several years.

In at least 22 of last year's 50 homicides, the alleged attacker was a current or former spouse, boyfriend, son or brother of the victim or a person who had a common acquaintance with the victim.

Six of those domestic incidents were murder-suicides and three were child-abuse homicides. In all of the domestic cases involving children, victims were 2 years old or younger.

"Despite all the work all the advocates do, it seems that domestic violence-related deaths never seem to go down appreciably. They go down a little one year, then back up the next," said Mark Nash, chairman of the domestic violence-related deaths committee of the Utah Domestic Violence Council. "I don't know what happens, but domestic violence-related deaths don't seem to go down."

Some children are direct victims, others suffer ill effects as events unfold before them:

• The youngest victim was 4-month-old Christian D'agnillo, who was found lying next to the decomposed bodies of his parents. Their bodies were found in their South Ogden apartment, shot to death in a murder-suicide. Christian's cause of death could not be determined.

• Theresa Marie Harris, 43, was shot four times and killed by her ex-husband on Jan. 2 while their daughters, ages 9 and 12, watched.

• Lindsey Rae Fawson, 23, was shot and killed in Draper on May 16 by a former boyfriend while her young son watched from the back seat of her car.

• Jacquelyn Villoto, 34, was fatally shot and stabbed multiple times by her common-law husband, Jairo Ortega, 46, at their Herriman home before he fatally shot himself. Villoto's three sons, aged 12 to 15, were the first to discover their mother's body as they returned home.

The number of domestic violence homicides actually could have been higher this year if not for quick medical attention and, in some cases, sheer luck.