Keynote speaker Vicki Crompton and members of the Washington County Domestic Violence Coalition. Photos by Sam McIntosh.

An Iowa woman’s story about the murder of her teenage daughter by the girl’s 18-year-old ex boyfriend was told at the Washington Public Library Friday during the free Domestic Violence Educational Symposium.

Vicki Crompton gave the keynote presentation about her daughter’s stabbing, her grief following the incident, and her forgiveness of the murderer Mark Smith, who is serving a life sentence in prison for what occurred 31 years ago.

Crompton says a domestic violence victim can be anyone, “One of the biggest misconceptions about teen domestic violence is that it only happens to a certain kind of teen from a certain kind of family. And that would be the teen who’s failing in school, may be sexually promiscuous, maybe using drugs, maybe doesn’t have a strong family unit. And that used to infuriate me in the early years because none of that was true about my daughter. It can happen to anyone.”

Crompton mentions the importance of reaching out to not just victims of domestic violence, but also perpetrators, “Mark Smith himself said to me ‘I wanted to look good in front of my friends and if my friends had said anything to me and made fun of me or insulted me I probably would have stopped.’ And so I think peer pressure can be very powerful.”

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and the Washington County Domestic Violence Coalition hung 4,384 ribbons in the Washington square to show how many men and women in Washington County, based on national statistics, will experience severe violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime.

Participants at the Domestic Violence Educational Symposium at the Washington Public Library look at the ribbon display representing the number of men, women, and children in Washington County that will experience domestic violence in their lifetime.