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ENOCH, Iron County— For all the times Tina Brown has spoken to her friend, she wishes she could do it one more time.
"If I could shed any light at all about Tausha, it's that she was everybody's friend and she made everybody feel like they were her only friend," Brown said.
She last spoke to Tausha Haight on Dec. 30 about how Christmas went and how her kids were doing.
There was no way to know what was coming.
Tausha Haight; Haight's mother, Gail Earl; and Haight's children — three daughters ages 17, 12, and 7, and two sons, ages 7 and 4 — were shot to death by the children's father and Haight's husband, Michael Orwin Haight, who then took his own life, according to a statement by Enoch city officials.
All eight bodies were found in a home Wednesday afternoon at 4923 N. Albert Drive after police were asked to conduct a welfare check by concerned family and friends.
"I don't know how anyone can make any sense of this," she said. "I decided last night when I went to bed with such a heavy heart and a lot of anger, I just decided I am not focusing on the darkness anymore. I want to talk about the light."
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The Utah father who shot and killed his family removed weapons from the home days before the killings, leaving them vulnerable because they were trained in gun safety, a relative says.And what a light Tausha Haight was in her Enoch community.
If you had a bad day at work or struggles at home, Brown said you can bet you'd be hearing from Haight along with some of her famous homemade bread.
"The countless loaves of bread that were dropped off at doorsteps," Brown said with a laugh. "She wanted everyone around her to be better. That was just her. You could pick up your phone and text her or call her or knock on her door, and she was always there."
Haight's children were the same way.
They once organized a going away party for someone moving away from their neighborhood.
"That's just the way they were," Brown said." That's just the way they were."
It makes what happened at the Haight family home unimaginable.
"It kind of hit me like a rock when my oldest said, 'Mom, we see things like this all the time on the news, you hear about it on podcasts and you see "Dateline" episodes, but it doesn't happen here and it definitely doesn't happen to people that we know,'" Brown said.
Since Brown and Haight were close friends, Brown says she knows what to do next at a time when nothing else makes sense.
"She is going to be missed. There's no doubt," she said. "But I think we can honor her by living the way she lived."
Contributing: Pat Reavy
