'Nice, safe' area is still in shock

WEST VALLEY CITY —

The yards are nursery quality. Lawns are trimmed. Sidewalks are swept. Flowerbeds are in bloom. Basketball hoops abound.

And more often than not, you'll find "Neighborhood Watch" and "Protected By" signs near the front door, indicating alarms will sound and a security company will be alerted if there are any unwanted intruders.

By all outward criteria, the neighborhood where a young mother was beaten to death last week, allegedly by her 18-year-old next-door neighbor, qualifies as a nice, safe neighborhood, a quiet, comfortable place to call home.

"No one can believe it happened," said a man who lives five houses due west of the cul de sac where the slaying took place a week ago Thursday night. "All I can tell you is everyone is in shock."

Police have alleged that Martin Vuksinick, a teenager who might have graduated from nearby Cyprus High School this year if not for a drug problem that caused him to drop out of school in January, entered the house of Kimberly Hain, 33, through an unlocked door. They believe larceny was his objective, but when he encountered Kimberly, plans changed. They believe that high on cocaine, he beat her with his fists and a baseball bat.

The unthinkable had happened. Someone everyone thought they knew and could trust, someone who could move freely in their midst, is accused of becoming someone they didn't know, someone capable of actions they could not comprehend.

The danger, it turned out, wasn't outside the neighborhood, it was inside the neighborhood.

The neighbor down the street, requesting his name not be used out of respect for the trauma everyone is going through, could only shake his head.

He and his family knew Martin Vuksinick, he said, knew him as well as you can get to know a neighborhood kid.

"He was a good friend of my son before my son moved to California last winter," said the neighbor. "He was a normal, average kid, a kid I would trust to come in my house."

The man remembered the last time he saw Vuksinick.

"It was about a week ago. He was passing by and stopped to say hi and ask about my son."

He continued, "My wife, after we found out who they said did it, she cried all night. She really liked that boy. I'm really sad for the families. It shouldn't have happened. There was no reason for it to happen."

He looked up and down the street at his neighbors' well-kept yards and buttoned-down houses. "This is a nice area to live," he declared. "You don't hear of break-ins. You don't hear of anything like that. I usually lock my doors, but I don't lock my truck" — he pointed to a red Chevrolet Z71 parked in the driveway — "I can leave tools and stuff in my truck or in my yard; my little son can leave his bike in the yard, nothing happens."