Domestic violence is the leading cause of homicide in Utah, according to an analysis of FBI and state data by a local news station in Salt Lake City. The investigation is based on intimate partner homicide data recently released by the state.
The station, Fox 13, found that 51 – more than a third – of the 137 homicides between July 2023 and January 2025 were the result of intimate partner or familial violence. The majority of the perpetrators were men, while the sexes of the victim were nearly evenly split, with 26 male and 25 female victims. This could be because in many cases, there were multiple victims, including a victim’s children, parents or siblings.
For advocates, the findings are devastating, but not surprising, given that it’s mostly women who come through the doors of domestic violence response centers and shelters, fearing for their lives after being threatened by their partners, said Kimmi Wolf, the communications specialist for the Utah Domestic Violence Coalition (UDVC).
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“Their level of fear and violence, the danger, the apologies – the entire cycle and years of power and control – it’s clear that homicide for many of these clients is going to be in the near future,” she said.
The homicide data was released as a part of a 2023 law that requires all police responding to a domestic violence call to administer a lethality assessment. The assessment includes questions about whether the romantic partner is jealous or controlling, or has threatened their partner with a weapon. The release also came less than a week after three police officers were shot, two fatally, while responding to a domestic violence call in Tremonton, about 70 miles (113km) north of Salt Lake City.
While groups such as the UDVC lobbied for the legislation, the new protocol has meant an increase in referrals to the state’s 16 already thinly stretched direct service providers that provide emergency housing and legal support, Wolf added.
At the same time, the Trump administration made deep cuts to funding for victims of crime, and state legislators excluded $1.6m in new funding requested by the UDVC for programs dealing with the influx of new clients in need of help.
These cuts are especially gutting for rural communities, many of which have just one service provider for hundreds of miles, Wolf said, and those who work in underserved communities of color, whose missions have been under attack due to the Trump administration’s crackdown on what it’s described as diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs.
“At the end of the day, underfunded service agencies lost more money,” Wolf said. “We were already at a crisis tipping point. Then for the federal monies to dry up, that was the crisis.”
Fox 13’s investigation comes amid Donald Trump’s hyperbolic portrayal of crime in major American cities, deployment of the national guard in Washington DC, and threats to send them to other US cities where he claims crime and violence are out of control.
Noticeably absent from his comments, Wolf said, are conversations about what’s happening in states like Utah, where the greatest risk of homicide doesn’t come from a stranger on the street but from someone who’s claimed to love you. “We’re always afraid of these faceless criminals that are gonna jump out at us and cause us harm. But you’re more likely to be harmed by someone you know,” Wolf said.
“It’s the woman who is at risk in her own home that is in danger from her spouse. We don’t want to admit that,” she continued. “It’s so easy to think of other people being the source of crime, not people in our own homes.”
• In the US, the suicide prevention lifeline is 988 and the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123 and the domestic abuse helpline is 0808 2000 247. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org
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