The Department of Adult Protective Services states that only one in every 23 domestic violence situations amongst seniors over the age of 55 are reported to law enforcement.
They say the rise in local case numbers has less to do with incidents occurring more often, and more to do with older victims feeling more empowered to come forward in recent years.
The October 9th death of an older Lehi woman marks the sixth person over age 55 to be killed in a domestic violence related attach in Utah this year.
85-year-old Ronald Morgan died in police custody a day after admitting to police that he beat his wife, Dora Webb, to death in their Lehi home after what court documents say he admitted was building frustration until he “just lost it.”
“It's hard to know for sure if this was just a sudden turn of events,” commented Sonia Salari, a sociology research professor at the University of Utah. Salari has completed multiple empirical studies on domestic related homicides in the older population.
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