San Jose – Former Garlic Queen Franca Barsi is among the six people who died a victim of domestic violence in Santa Clara County in 2006.
The 38-year-old single mother made headlines again on Valentine’s Day, when county officials released data showing she was one of five homicides included in the deaths reported in the 2006 Domestic Violence Death Review Report.
The sixth death last year was a suicide.
Barsi was found murdered in her Gilroy Westwood Drive condominium on Sept. 13 by Gilroy police. She met her confessed killer, 39-year-old David Vincent Reyes of Gilroy, in the check-out line at PW Supermarket, where she worked as a cashier. Reyes had recently been released from prison.
According to an online database of sex offenders, Reyes was previously arrested for sexual assault.
Santa Clara County Assistant District Attorney Rolanda Pierre-Dixon told reporters during a morning press conference at the county government center in downtown San Jose that the team releases the report on Valentine’s Day every year because the holiday is “supposed to be about love, but we want to draw attention to those relationships that are in trouble, are dangerous, are life-threatening.”
The report compiled by the review team, which meets monthly at the coroner’s office to discuss any death related to domestic violence, states that the average age of the female homicide victims was 27; the only male homicide victim was 51. Three of the murdered people were Hispanic, two were white, and one was Hispanic/Asian.
One of the murder victims had attended college, while three had finished high school. Five children were present at the time of death of either one or both parents; seven children lost one or both parents to death or incarceration.
Two of the deaths came in the same case, when a boyfriend killed his girlfriend and then himself. One of the victims was killed when his girlfriend’s previous boyfriend found out they were dating. Another victim was killed by her live-in boyfriend who found out she was planning to move out. One victim was killed after breaking off a dating relationship. The sixth victim was a 2-year-old girl who was killed by her father when he was angry because her mother was leaving him.
The number of deaths related to domestic violence was down from 2005, when there were 10 domestic violence deaths in the county. In 2004, the review committee found six deaths, and in 2003, 21 were reported.
“One death is one death too many,” said Perla Flores, Community Solutions’ director of the Solutions to Violence program, commenting on the report. “This is not just a statistic we’re talking about, this is a human being who has a mother, a father, a sister, a brother, children who will have to live without them now. This is a human being whose life is taken away. In order for us to eradicate these kinds of deaths, we have to do something about promoting and preserving the basic human rights of women.”
Pierre-Dixon said attitudes that men have the right to “keep women in line,” or that when people see or hear of abuse, it is “none of their business,” need to change.
Barsi’s death came after abuse that she kept mostly to herself during their on-again, off-again relationship, according to Barsi’s close friend Belinda Pratt-Garcia. Though others close to Barsi didn’t know about the relationship’s darker side, Pratt-Garcia told The Gilroy Dispatch, Barsi told her.
Talking about the dangerous side of Barsi’s relationship with her batterer and eventual killer, Pratt-Garcia said, “It started off as mental, but she did tell me one incident where he was physical. They would get into a very heated argument, and he would begin to throw things around her and break things around her. I believe he pushed her, but she didn’t go into any details. I think she was worried I would come down or bring someone with me to beat him up. She would say he’s not like this all the time. She said, ‘He promised me he wasn’t going to hurt me again.’ I told her not to let him back into her life.”
Those closest to Barsi – except for Pratt-Garcia – were surprised to learn of the abuse and that Reyes killed her.
Pierre-Dixon said that that’s a common reaction.
“People don’t believe it, but it can happen to anyone, even someone who seems to have it all,” she said. “We want people to understand, just because someone is college educated or high school educated, or from the upper class or middle class, doesn’t mean this isn’t happening to them. Don’t you believe that it’s only happening to women of color, to Hispanic women, to poor women.”
She added that there are common situations the team saw when they studied the situations. When a domestic violence death is reported, she said, the team creates a timeline for the victim, starting with birth date and ending with the death, filing in as many details in between as possible.
The “red flags” they notice are things that are common in several cases. In this year’s report, red flags included: separation from the partner or talking of separation prior to the murder, jealousy, possessiveness, previous unreported domestic violence, unemployment or underemployment, stalking, depression and kidnapping.
Something the team wants the community to know, she said, is that in order to stop this kind of violence, people need to speak out: “Speak Up-Save Lives” is the team’s motto.
She is reminded, she said, of a particular case where a woman was being savagely beaten in a Safeway parking lot. No one did anything, she said, until the man yanked the woman’s puppy from the car and threw it on the ground.
“Then they got involved; we have to get to the place where that woman’s life is as important as her puppy’s,” she said.
DV DEATHS IN
SANTA CLARA COUNTY
1998 – 20
1999 – 18
2000 – 18
2001 – 17
2002 – 18
2003 – 21
2004 – 6
2005 – 10
2006 – 6
