The shameful frequency of domestic violence and its often deadly toll can leave us all with an awful and empty sense of futility.

Most recently in North Texas, a Watauga woman died at the hands of her ex-boyfriend, just five days after cops had picked him up on family violence assault charges. And earlier in April, authorities recovered the body of a Grand Prairie woman who disappeared the same day police secured an arrest warrant for her estranged boyfriend who allegedly punched her.

The victims in the Grand Prairie and Watauga cases, Weltzin Garcia Mireles and Emily Susan Law, had taken the extra step of securing protective orders against their former partners.

The women’s heart-wrenching deaths highlight the miserably inadequate options for people dealing with a violent partner. As Kae Law, the Watauga woman’s son, said, "A piece of paper is a freaking piece of paper. It's not going to protect my mom from being killed. It didn't."

Protective orders, like other intervention measures and court-ordered programs, will never stop every miserable excuse for a human being who is intent on terrorizing or killing a woman. The stories of Mireles and Law only reinforce how tough it is to keep dangerous people — those who think a breakup should be punished by death — from hurting their partners.

Domestic abuse can appear situational, but it always boils down to an ugly desire to control, bully and rage at someone — and to feel entitled to explode in violence when the person doesn’t comply. And accounts of men who kill the women they supposedly love are such commonplace tragedies that the details of one can blur sickeningly into the next.

The Watauga and Grand Prairie cases both followed a similar and familiar pattern.

Weltzin Garcia Mireles disappeared weeks before her body was found April 3. (Grand Prairie Police / Family photo)

In Grand Prairie, Mireles and her estranged boyfriend, Alfonso Hernandez, went missing Feb. 5, not long after she obtained her protective order against him.

Hernandez was found dead in White Rock Lake later that month; Mireles' body was recovered April 3 from Mountain Creek Lake. Mireles' twin sister, Atziry, said police shared evidence with the family that led them to believe that Hernandez strangled her and dumped her body in the lake.

Atziry Mireles believes her sister gave Hernandez a second chance after she told police he hit her. “That second chance, he took it to take my sister’s life,” Atziry Mireles said.

In the Watauga case, police had arrested Law’s ex-boyfriend, James Freeman, on a family violence assault charge for allegedly choking Law in mid-April. Five days later, on April 22, Freeman killed her, police say.

Officers responded to a call for help from the home and fatally shot Freeman after they said he pointed a gun at them.

Police say Emily Susan Law, shown here after a triathlon event, was killed by her ex-boyfriend. (Family photo)

Freeman apparently also took his second chances to escalate his acts of violence. Police records show officers were called in March about a fight between Law and Freeman, but no one was arrested. The officer wrote in the report that he'd had prior contact with the couple but did not specify when.

Friends and family wanted Law to stay with them in the days after she secured her protective order against Freeman. But she was determined her ex's behavior would not keep her from her regular routine as she trained for her first Ironman triathlon.

Dallas lawyer Messina Madson, the former acting Dallas County district attorney who has prosecuted countless domestic violence cases, understands the frustration all of us — especially Kae Law — feel about the system’s failings.

“I wish that it [the protective order] was more,” she told me. “I wish that more people were afraid of them.”

Madson said a protective order is mostly a symbolic initial step in a victim’s gradual recognition of the seriousness of a domestic situation. “It serves as a warning signal that something is wrong," she said.

The order is sought in civil court but has criminal implications. Madson said it’s “often a decision by women who are in the mental place of ‘I don’t want him to go to jail, I just want him to stop — and surely if the courts tell him to stop, he will.’”

The former prosecutor wishes victims would seek more consequential criminal action quicker, but “it’s understandable that victims are hesitant because it’s human nature to want to believe the narrative that the ex-boyfriend wouldn’t seriously hurt them.”

Dallas lawyer Messina Madson says protective orders are a mostly symbolic step that warns that "something is wrong." (Madson Castello law firm)

Once domestic violence charges are filed, these cases remain exhausting and sometimes disheartening, Madson said. “As a prosecutor, it was the constant pull between what I believe and what I can prove," she said.

You’ve got the accused trying to discredit their accusers — victims sometimes so fragile that they don’t always focus on the most powerful evidence. Family and friends often know far more than their loved one is willing to tell law enforcement.

Madson said the key is finding the balance between trying to prosecute everything — a seemingly impossible task — and standing firm at the right time when victims want to drop the charges “because a batterer is sweet-talking her or scaring her into doing just that.”

Tougher options are available. Dallas County Criminal Court Judge Shequitta Kelly, who oversees domestic violence misdemeanor cases, told me that she makes sure stay-away orders — which are far tougher than protective orders — are put in place once the accused comes before her court.

A violation of a stay-away order — usually issued as part of bond or probation requirements — lands the alleged perpetrator in jail much quicker than a protective order. But it only becomes an option after charges are officially filed.

Dallas County Criminal Court Judge Shequitta Kelly says stay-away orders work because the perpetrator "is afraid I'm going to throw his butt in jail." (Vernon Bryant / Staff Photographer)

Kelly said she also can attach a number of conditions to stay-away orders — for example, requiring the accused to get mental health help or substance abuse assessment and treatment.

“Of course, if he wants to go kick in the door and shoot her, that protective order or stay-away order means nothing,” Kelly said. But a lot of times these orders work because “he is afraid I’m going to throw his butt in jail.”

In Dallas, at least, officials are also trying to offer more support to victims, and society is finally moving toward viewing family violence with the same no-excuses intolerance aimed at sex offenders and child molesters.

Yet still too often, the burden falls on victims of incessant violence to leave their homes, yank their kids out of school, quit their jobs and go into hiding.

The only lasting change, Kelly told me, will come from the hardest work of all: rehabilitation for offenders.

“Offenders plead guilty to jail time, they get out and they are the exact same person,” the judge said. “They just find a new victim or go back to their original victim and start again.”

Weltzin Garcia Mireles and Susan Law were the victims of that cycle of violence. We honor their memories only if we shake off our cynicism and work to keep more women safe.

Need help dealing with domestic violence?

To find emergency shelter or to talk with a professional as a victim or as a concerned friend or family member, contact:

The Family Place | 24-Hour Crisis Hotline: 214-941-1991

Additional domestic violence resources around Dallas County can be found here. Tarrant County resources can be found here.