How Utah domestic violence policy has changed one year after Enoch murders

TAYLORSVILLE — It's been one year since the murder of an entire family in a small Utah town sent horror rippling through the state, sparking the community to search for answers and action in the arena of domestic violence.

On Jan. 4, 2023, police came upon a grisly discovery in the Haight family household in Enoch.

Husband and father Michael Haight shot and killed his wife, Tausha Haight, their five children, and Tausha Haight's mother Gail Earl. He then died by suicide.

"The case of the whole family that was killed in Enoch — that was right before the legislative session started," said Erin Jemison, director of public policy for the Utah Domestic Violence Coalition.

A memorial on Thursday in the city of Enoch honored the seven victims of domestic violence killings and suicide one year ago in southern Utah.

Thursday's event in Enoch was a celebration of life to remember Tausha Haight, her mother Gail Earl and the five Haight children: Macie, Briley, twins Ammon and Sienna, and Gavin.

The Haight family's unthinkable tragedy was fresh on everyone's minds heading into the 2023 legislative session.

"That happening, I think, it just put it front and center at a time when they were all considering legislation," Jemison said. "And there wasn't much resistance to domestic violence legislation, and there was true support for more resources."

At the time, it was up to each police agency in the state whether or not to implement the lethality assessment protocol questionnaire when responding to domestic violence calls.

According to the Utah Domestic Violence Coalition, the questionnaire can help assess if victims are at high risk of violence, and it can help those victims get connected to livesaving resources faster.

In Tausha Haight's case, reports revealed that she called police on her husband in 2020 over reports of abuse against one of their children and that Michael Haight admitted to losing his temper and yelling at his children. Tausha Haight told officers that she hoped it was a "wake-up call" for Michael Haight.

According to the results of a lethality assessment protocol later released to the public, Tausha Haight answered "no" to most of the questions. However, the caller who requested a welfare check on her the morning she was found dead disclosed to police that Michael Haight was violent and had access to guns — which are potential markers in a lethality assessment protocol questionnaire that could trigger resource referral and help.

Lt. Nick Street, with the Department of Public Safety's Statewide Information Analysis Center, said about 50% of law enforcement agencies in Utah were using the questionnaire a year ago, but all the statistics were kept within each department.

There was no sharing of results and no tracking of aggressors.

'A more standardized tool'

After the Haight murders, flames were fanned toward bills like SB117, which mandated all police agencies in the state get on the same page when responding to domestic violence calls and using the protocol questionnaire across the board.

The bill passed, and the program was unrolled in July. The Legislature also allocated more funding toward helping victims of domestic violence.

"Law enforcement have a more standardized tool to lean on in very complex cases and very difficult calls that they're getting," Jemison said. "We're able to connect people who need help to shelter, to services, to therapy, to case management, to safety planning."

All state agencies now use the lethality assessment protocol questionnaire, and all agencies report results to a state dashboard, so that the analysis center can compile and keep track of the data.

From July to December 2023, 144 agencies submitted 5,771 lethality assessment protocols, according to data the Statewide Information Analysis Center provided to KSL-TV.

A majority of the questionnaires, 63%, were assessed as "potentially lethal," versus "not potentially lethal." More than 600 offenders, which is about 10%, were involved in prior protocol questionnaires.

"We're able to now utilize a lot of data points that are coming in for domestic violence that we otherwise at the state level wouldn't have seen," Street said.

He said police officers who conduct protocol questionnaires can see if an offender was involved in a prior lethality assessment protocol, even if it was with another victim in another jurisdiction. Details like that can give context and nuance as the officer handles a call and works with a victim, he explained.

They're able to track which questions have the most "yes" answers. The top one? "Aggressor is violently jealous or controlling." The second is a question about separation after cohabitation, and the third is that the aggressor follows, spies, or leaves threatening messages.

'Solving domestic violence in Utah'

Street pointed out that despite more than half of lethality assessment protocols being deemed "potentially lethal," the top three questions themselves are not about lethal action. He said that having that information doesn't just benefit the state, it benefits domestic violence victims.

"Now, that victim, in answering those questions, can be informed with that level of risk that those questions are researched to provide," he said.

Street said a huge outcome is that more officers are referring domestic violence victims to resources, potentially saving lives.

"Arming them with information to be better informed in moving forward with victim service providers, and getting resources that are required to get themself out of an unsafe situation," Street said.

Going forward, Street said they're hoping to use the data to find additional trends and pinpoint where the state can better allocate resources.

In the months since the statewide lethality assessment protocol policy has been implemented, Jemison described how service providers are seeing a 50- to- 80% increase, as more people come forward for help.

"The lethality assessment is not the end-all-be-all to solving domestic violence in Utah," Jemison said. "But when it comes to helping us reach the folks who need the most help, it is working."

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