West Valley City • A year ago, Kellie Anderson was blissfully unaware of the telltale signs of domestic violence. She didn’t see what was happening to her sister — the verbal abuse, the isolation — as anything to be too concerned about.

Neither did Anderson’s sister, 37-year-old Stacey Guzman — until it was too late.

“She didn’t think it was as bad as it was. Now she knows, you know?’ Anderson said. “Now we know how bad it was for her.”

Guzman’s husband beat her death in October 2016. He killed himself shortly after. Since then, Anderson and her family have been doing whatever it takes to raise awareness for domestic violence to prevent it from happening to others. That’s what they were doing Tuesday night.

They were among the dozens who attended a domestic violence awareness event at West Valley City Hall. City officials hold the event annually to honor victims and encourage people to end the stigma around domestic violence by talking about it, said Rachelle Hill, the city’s victim services coordinator.

(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) This week Kellie Anderson and her family will commemorate the life of her sister, Stacey Guzman, who was killed by her husband October 28, 2016 in Ventura, CA. Life-sized, red metal silhouettes serve as a reminder of victims of domestic-violence homicides during West Valley City's domestic violence-awareness march and reception at City Hall.

While deaths related to domestic violence accounted for nearly a third of Utah’s homicides last year, the issue remains taboo, Hill said.

“I hear from my victims day in and day out, all walks of life,” she said. “They just are embarrassed. They are embarrassed about it. They don’t want to talk about it. They feel some sort of guilt and think it’s their fault.”

That’s why the event begins outside City Hall, with people holding signs and waving at passing motorists to solicit honks — and to get them thinking about the issue.

Then attendees move inside, where they sit among red, life-size silhouettes representing every person who’s died because of domestic violence in West Valley City.

There were 47 Tuesday night, and that’s not counting the five more that’ll be added for this year’s victims.

Twenty-eight people have died in Utah because of domestic-violence related instances in 2017, said Jenn Oxborrow, executive director for Utah’s Domestic Violence Coalition. There is about one homicide related to domestic violence in Utah each month, according to the state’s health department.

Of this year’s 28 such deaths, seven occurred in West Valley City. Five of those individuals get silhouettes, though, because the exhibition doesn’t honor perpetrators.

As part of the event, Mayor Ron Bigelow read a proclamation dubbing October 2017 Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Deputy Police Chief Matt Elson and the city’s chief prosecutor Ryan Robinson also spoke.

They touched on a common theme: Domestic violence doesn’t only affect individuals. It rattles communities.

That means, they said, it takes the entire community to fix the issue.

“That doesn’t mean that we’re going to end domestic violence today,” he said. “I don’t think even with our speeches or our honk-and-wave, but I know that one person at a time, one response at a time, one call at a time, one case at a time, we can make a difference in this community.”