"She was afraid of me, and I was the number one guy ... on her side," he said.

Wark's family knew she had struggled with mental illness over the years but believed her recent move to Utah and her plans to pursue massage therapy schooling at the Utah College of Massage Therapy meant a fresh start and a chance to succeed.

"Kelly was a gentle, kind and loving person ... and was on her way to beginning anew," said sister Erin Wark, reading a family statement.

Hancock said he wonders if he could have done more to help Wark.

"Maybe ... when we knew she was sick, we should have just gritted our teeth, tied her up and taken her to the mental hospital," he said. "But when she's lucid, which is most of the time, she wasn't going to go for it."

He said she did take some medications, which appeared to help, but she was not too strict about refilling them on time, nor seeking advice from anyone but one particular nurse practitioner.

For those like Wark, Hancock said he thinks laws need to be adjusted, allowing family members to get help for adult loved ones who won't seek help on their own.

"There's gotta be some way for families to be given a little bit of leeway," Hancock said. (But) she's a grown woman and 99.9 percent of the time she's lucid. The psych ward will not let you drag somebody down there. The police can come get her, but only if there's a crime committed. She wasn't a criminal.

"If Kelly was like this and this happened once," Hancock continued, "there's many other people out there in a very similar situation. I'd hate to see this again."

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E-mail: sisraelsen@desnews.com