TORREY, Utah (KUTV) — Residents in Wayne County are beginning the healing process with memorials and wellness events after a shocking triple homicide rocked the tight-knit community.
Photos, flowers and handwritten notes now sit at a growing memorial near the Cockscomb Trailhead, where two of the victims were found. Friends, family members and strangers have tied ribbons to trees, laid handmade art and poems, and stacked small rock cairns near the trailhead to honor the women.
The display memorializes 86-year-old Margaret Oldroyd, 65-year-old Linda Dewey and Dewey’s niece, 34-year-old Natalie Graves. In a statement, family members asked for privacy and requested that the community use the trailhead memorial as a place to remember their loved ones.
The deaths have shaken the rural community.
MORE | Wayne County Triple Homicide
“It’s stuff you hear about on the news all the time, but it doesn’t happen here. And then it happened here,” said Wayne County School District Superintendent Randy Shelley.
After canceling school last week, students in Wayne County returned to class Monday. Shelley said some students still feel uneasy.
“I don’t know if it’s outright fear, but there’s definitely a sense of apprehension,” Shelley said. “Like I was mentioning earlier, one individual doesn’t go out and go running now.”
Local leaders say the focus now is helping residents process what happened.
Wayne County is hosting multiple wellness events Monday evening, including one at Wayne High School and another at the Wayne Community Health Center. Both events are open to the public and will offer free mental health support.
Shelley said the school district already had a community wellness event planned before the killings, part of an ongoing effort to address mental health and provide resources to students and families.
“We typically bring in a guest speaker to talk about anything from suicide prevention to other kinds of prevention just good character education,” Shelley said.
He said the murders only underscore the need for continued mental health support.
“Mental health issues are everywhere, and we need to do more to help students and adults with their mental health,” he said.
In the wake of the killings, the district is also making counselors available for students and community members who may need someone to talk to.
“We try to reassure kids that they’re safe. The school will be the safest place kids can be,” Shelley said. “Providing a listening ear is as important as anything sometimes.”
School officials have said they plan to keep counselors available for students while maintaining as much normalcy as possible in classrooms.
Meanwhile, residents continue to visit the memorial site, leaving flowers, notes and small tokens of remembrance for the three women whose deaths have deeply affected the community.
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