The extended family of the 38-year-old woman and three children who police suspect were killed by their father last weekend released a statement Thursday, calling the sole teen survivor their “hero.”
“Like all of you, we were shocked to learn of the tragic and untimely deaths of 4 of our family members at the hands of their husband and father,” the statement released early Thursday read. “We condemn all forms of abuse and violence, especially abuse and violence against innocent women and children.”
The mother killed, identified Thursday as Bu Meh, was found dead Tuesday in a bed upstairs alongside her daughters, Kristina Ree, age 8, and Nyay Meh, age 2, police said.
In a downstairs living room, her 11-year-old son, Boe Reh, was also found dead in the same room as his 42-year-old father, identified Thursday as Dae Reh. A handgun was found underneath the father’s body.
Dae Reh is accused of shooting his wife and four children before turning the gun on himself. The fourth child, a 17-year-old boy, survived a gunshot wound to the head. He was found alive Tuesday afternoon in the home’s garage, where police suspect he managed to get to after being wounded elsewhere in the house.
“Sha Reh is our 17-year-old hero,” extended relatives wrote in the statement, identifying the lone survivor. Police noted Wednesday that the boy, who remains hospitalized in critical condition, has been unable to communicate because of his injuries.
“He has a long and complex road to recovery,” the relatives wrote. “He needs our full attention, our unconditional love, and the Savior’s gifts of healing and peace.”
The relatives said they are cooperating with police to “better understand the motive behind these senseless acts of violence.”
“While the perpetrator of these heinous acts is deceased, we know that God’s justice is not,” they wrote.
The family described Bu Meh as a “beautiful wife and mother.” She fled a violent situation in her home country of Myanmar more than a decade ago and came to the U.S. with her husband and young family as Karenni refugees “with little more than the clothing on their backs.”
In America, Bu Meh taught herself English and “worked tirelessly to support her family,” the relatives wrote. They said her dream was to one day own a home and “live comfortably alongside her husband and their four beautiful children.”
“After moving into their own home and finally enjoying a level of prosperity far beyond the nightmare of their former country or the refugee camp in Thailand in which they lived for a season, and for reasons that we cannot comprehend,” the relatives wrote, “her husband robbed her and their children of that security and their very lives.”
The “large extended family” asked for privacy as they mourn, plan a joint celebration of life and work to heal.
(Chris Samuels | The Salt Lake Tribune) Investigators search a home on Oxford Way in West Valley City, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024. Police say five members of a family were found dead Tuesday afternoon; a sole teen survivor was also found wounded.
Police were initially called Monday to the house, on the 3700 block of Oxford Way (approximately 3400 West), after a concerned relative of Bu Meh requested a welfare check.
Officers tried to contact the family with no response, police said. The officers reported that they looked through the home’s windows and saw no obvious signs of an emergency or a crime.
But when Bu Meh didn’t show up for work Tuesday, the relative went to the house herself at about 2 p.m. She entered through the garage, where she found the wounded teen and called police.
West Valley City police had not been called to the home before, spokesperson Roxeanne Vainuku said during a Wednesday news conference. Before this case, the city had reported four homicides so far this year. The victims’ deaths doubled that number.
The West Valley City killings unfolded nearly two years after a father in the small southern Utah community of Enoch in January 2023 shot his five kids, along with his 40-year-old wife and the wife’s 78-year-old mother, before turning the gun on himself. The slayings happened two weeks after the wife had filed for divorce, police said.
A few months later, in May 2023, a Layton man killed his 36-year-old wife, his in-laws and three family dogs before calling police. He pleaded guilty to three counts of aggravated murder in October 2023 and was later sentenced to three consecutive life sentences in prison without the possibility of parole.
Kimmi Wolf, with the Utah Domestic Violence Coalition, said Wednesday that it’s “terrifying [that] this type of violence is viewed by some as an option.”
She said one out of every three women in Utah have been involved in a domestic violence situation at some point in their life. The relatives in their statement Thursday encouraged people experiencing domestic violence or at risk of self-harm to seek help.
Editor’s note • Those who are experiencing intimate partner violence, or know someone who is, are urged to call the Utah Domestic Violence Link Line, 1-800-897-LINK (5465), or Utah’s 24-Hour Sexual Violence Help Line, 801-736-4356 (or 801-924-0860 in Spanish). If you or people you know are at risk of self-harm, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline’s 24-hour support.
