After three women lost their lives last weekend, D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier is hoping victims of domestic violence seek help before it's too late.
Mary Anne Thomas, 53, was found shot to death in her southwest D.C. home, just a few blocks from Nationals Park Friday morning. D.C. police said a child was found alive on the home's second floor.
Later that evening, 64-year-old Barbara Moore was found dead inside her home in the 4100 block of Gault Street NE. D.C. police said an autopsy determined her cause of death was strangulation.
Eboni Domally, 31, was fatally stabbed inside a home in the 5200 block of Queens Stroll Place in Southeast early Sunday morning.
"A horrific case. We had children in the home at the time of the homicide, so the trauma the children will live with for the rest of their lives is... hard to imagine," Lanier said.
Lanier said 12 women have been killed in the District so far this year, compared with only 11 all of last year. Though she would say how many of those women were killed by their significant others, Lanier said the department is raising awareness of how quickly domestic violence can escalate.
"We're really trying to raise awareness. If there are people in abusive relationships, they gotta get out," Lanier said. "Violent relationships where there's abuse, especially physical abuse, can so quickly turn deadly."
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Kathy Henderson, an elected neighborhood leader, says the killings are worrisome.
"It's particularly disturbing for women," Henderson said. "For someone to perpetuate this kind of violence on a woman is so disheartening, so disturbing and it is a cause for alarm."
