ROCKINGHAM — A sea of purple balloons floated into the western sky Tuesday in memory of the nearly 60 North Carolinians killed so far this year by someone they loved.
The release was part of New Horizons Life and Family Services’ annual Domestic Violence Vigil, held in front of the old courthouse.
According to Teshika Wall, interim executive director, this year’s theme was “Everyone knows someone.”
“This is so very true,” Wall said. “We have all been impacted in some way by domestic violence.”
Each balloon featured a tag with the victim’s name, what weapon was used, and who is accused of killing them.
Of the 59 victims named, nine were in Guilford County; five each from Cumberland and Robeson counties; three each from Forsyth, Pitt, Mecklenburg and Wake counties; two each from Cleveland, Durham, Buncombe, Onslow, Wilson and New Hanover counties; and one each from Beaufort, Montgomery, Gaston, Rockingham, Lincoln, Iredell, Polk, Carteret, Harnett, Perquimans, Rowan, Rutherford, Stanly, Edgecombe, Chatham and Johnston counties.
One of the victims named was Allisha Watts, a woman from Moore County who had last been seen in Charlotte in mid-July.
Watts’ car was reportedly found two days later in the DMV parking lot in Polkton, with her unresponsive boyfriend inside. Her body was found Aug. 24 near the Richmond-Montgomery county line in Norman. The boyfriend, James Dunmore, is charged with murder.
In most of the cases, the alleged killer is a partner, spouse or former partner.
In one case, the victim was reportedly hit by a stray bullet during an altercation between the defendant and his child’s mother; and another victim was reportedly killed trying to help someone escape a domestic violence situation. One woman was reportedly killed, along with her daughter, by the daughter’s fiancé.
Eighteen of the cases are labeled as a murder-suicide, including a High Point case where a man reportedly killed his wife and three children before himself.
A majority of the victims were reportedly killed with a firearm, with a knife being the second-most used weapon. One victim was killed by a vehicle, and one by strangulation and blunt-force trauma. The murder weapon is unknown in four cases.
Fourteen of the alleged perpetrators are women.
According to Carolina Palenzuela, bilingual advocate for New Horizons, 35.2% of women and 30.3% of men in the state experience domestic violence in their lifetime, and impacts people in all communities.
“Domestic violence can result in physical injury, psychological trauma, and in severe cases, even death,” Palenzuela said. “The physical, emotional and mental impacts of domestic violence can span generations and last a lifetime.”
Prior to the reading of the victims’ names, New Horizons’ Lacy Court read the Kimberly Collins poem “Remember My Name,” written in 1995 to “memorialize victims and recognize survivors.”
Richmond County Jail records showed at 3 p.m. Oct. 25 that there were 10 men charged with assault on a female. Four have been booked during October, which is Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
(Note: It appears the assault on a female charge against one of the defendants has been dismissed, according to jail records.)
One of the defendants, Cano Ernesto Sanchez, is also charged with sexual assault and first-degree murder, among other crimes, and has been in the jail awaiting trial since July of 2022.
All defendants facing criminal charges are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
