Thursday, February 18, 2010

Article: Domestic Violence in Wyoming

Cheyenne - 2/17/2010

"Violence affects women of all walks of life and no one goes untouched by it's cruel, lasting marks."

Representative Kathy Davison knows this first-hand.

"My daughter, Kelly, who was 33, was shot and killed by her husband in October and it was domestic violence."

Four months after her daughter was killed, and Davison says the shock hasn't even started to wear off.

"In kelly's situation, she was very close to her family and we would have thought she would have shared with us...but she didn't," she said.

The Wyoming Attorney General's Office of Victims Services says there were more than 45-hundred reports of domestic violence in the state last year.

234 were filed in one day alone - and those are just the reported cases.

"One time I walked in on an argument between Kelly and her husband and I later told her she didn't have to put up with that. That she deserved to be treated better. She told me that it wasn't usually like that and it was only when he was drunk. Now I wish I would have pursued it."

But Davison is pursuing the cause now, before it's too late for other families.

"We decided as a family that we were going to start contributing and try to do something to make a difference."

Two bills, written by Davison, have already moved through the House for further discussion.

One would relinquish all parental rights of a person who commits murder to his or her spouse.

Even though Kelly's husband is in jail for murder, he still has parental rights.

"We've been going through a lot trying to get custody of her son," said Davison.

The other bill is written to create harsher penalties for killing a pregnant woman.

Kelly was pregnant with her second child when she was shot.

"I am confident that she never would have stayed if she didn't think she could change him."

As the bills move onto the House Judiciary Committee, Davison says as long as she gets people to talk about domestic violence, she feels she will be doing her daughter justice.

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