Tausha Haight often confided in a few close friends about her marriage — her concerns that it wasn’t normal, that her husband was emotionally abusive and controlling, how he wouldn’t let her buy groceries without permission and told her she could only drive their new car once when she showed him she “deserved it.”
So when she decided to move forward with a divorce, she trusted those friends to watch her five kids and keep them away from the house the day Michael Haight was served with the paperwork.
Macie Haight, Tausha’s oldest daughter, was excited that day, though. She told her own friends that she was glad for the divorce — which she said was “finally” happening — and hoped it would give her some space from her dad.
Briley, who was 12, agreed. She’d been sleeping over with her friends and some neighbors to get away from her dad, texting one to say, “It is just too much being at home” with him there.
But their hopes for getting away from the husband and father they described as volatile and demeaning lasted just a week.
Seven days later, he went through each room of the family’s house early on Jan. 4 and killed Tausha, the kids and Tausha’s mother before turning the gun on himself. His suicide note blamed his family’s treatment of him for what he did.
These details come from the Enoch Police Department’s final investigative report, released on Friday evening of Easter weekend. It sheds new light on what happened in the days before the domestic violence killings roiled the small, rural community in southern Utah, where the family lived in a gray stucco home off Interstate 15.
But the police documents don’t offer any evaluation of what could have been done differently to avoid that tragic end — even though both city officers and state child welfare workers knew about concerns for years about what was occurring behind the wreath-adorned door at 4923 N. Albert Drive. That included Macie reporting her concerns for a second time, weeks before the murders, to the Utah Division of Child and Family Services.
Other high-profile cases in the state have led to investigations and reform. After University of Utah student Lauren McCluskey was killed, the campus police department was overhauled and officials eventually admitted to mistakes made in not acting on the information they had about the man who was harassing the track athlete.
There have been efforts to inspect the troubled teen industry, too, where teens had been reporting abuse at treatment schools. And the state has also looked into law enforcement use of force and police dogs.
The Division of Child and Family Services didn’t respond to a question from The Salt Lake Tribune about whether state officials may review its work or consider any changes.
Enoch didn’t have an answer on what the department learned and might improve in future domestic violence reports.
“We, as a community of caring and conscientiousness people, in our efforts to find something that will definitively uncover the clues, still cannot see how a person could hurt his family in this way,” said City Manager Rob Dotson in a statement to The Tribune.
In a news release that accompanied the report Friday, the town said its investigation is complete and instead encouraged good will moving forward.
“Enoch City officials invite everyone to do what good they can wherever they live and contribute to legitimate entities,” it said.
Tausha’s family asked for privacy over the holiday weekend.
The Salt Lake Tribune will update this developing story.
from The Salt Lake Tribune https://ift.tt/N5vYQ6p
إرسال تعليق