APPLETON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Friday night, in a darkened room, with candles lit, a few dozen people silently remembered Sara Schmidt, a life cut short.
“Sara was an incredibly strong woman, I think, She endured a lot,” said Katie Huskey, the founder of a group called ‘Justice for Sara.’
On January 9th Schmidt was shot and killed by her husband who then turned the gun on himself.
Police called it a domestic homicide, murder-suicide.
“This has been devastating for the whole community,” Beth Schnorr, executive director of Harbor House Domestic Abuse Programs, tells FOX 11.
A month after her death, community members, friends and family gathered in Appleton to pay tribute Schmidt and other victims of domestic violence.
“We wanna make sure that we give voice to survivors and make sure that we honor those whose lives have been lost and remember the survivors who are still suffering in silence,” explained Schnorr.
Huskey also started a petition to change Wisconsin’s laws to better protect victims of domestic violence.
“The petition is to change the way that our laws are written around bond and domestic violence cases. Ultimately we wanna keep perpetrators behind bars to protect victims.”
According to court records Schmidt had left her husband only days before her death after he attacked and assaulted her. He was out on bail when he killed her.
“If the legislation had stronger language around focusing on victim safety, I think that her husband would have stayed in jail, which would have kept her alive,” Huskey explained.
The petition has more than 20,000 signatures and support from domestic abuse advocates.
“Absolutely we will support whatever we can do to keep survivors safe and hold perpetrators accountable, it’s absolutely what we need to look into and do,” Schnorr told us.
Schmidt left behind three children and an entire community in mourning.
Now, Huskey said, she hopes something good can come out of this tragedy.
“The community that she worked in loved her. Her family, her friends loved her. Her neighbors loved her and that’s what I want her to be remembered as. I don’t want her to be remembered about how she was taken from us.”
If you or someone you know is suffering from domestic abuse, you can find more information about Harbor House’s services at its website here.
