BOONE — Red is the color of power. Red is the color of anger. Red is the color of blood.

Red is the color of the silent witnesses, the life-sized silhouettes of Iowa women who were killed in acts of domestic violence. They stood in stark relief, faceless, against the evening sky. Each wore a shield that told the woman’s story; how she was killed and who she left behind.

Tuesday night, about 90 people gathered in the Herman Park pavilion in Boone for a silent witness of candlelight vigil. The vigil is part of Crime Victim Awareness Week.

The participants stood in silence, atop a wooded hill, and listened to speeches by Lynette Ward, of ACCESS, Donna Steward, a representative of Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin, Attorney General Tom Miller and a woman who only identified herself as Judy, a survivor whose daughter, Michelle, was killed by her husband.

The candlelight flickered in the darkness as the names were read of the 30 murdered women who were represented by the red silhouettes. Feelings of anger and sadness were almost palatable in the air, like ghosts of the women who were taken away from their babies and friends.

“Our lives have been turned upside down, inside out. Out lives will never, never, never be the same. It will always be with us,” said Judy, as she spoke of Michelle, the daughter she lost to domestic violence.

Judy told her daughter’s story to the crowd, at times fighting back tears. She told of how Michelle lived in the abusive relationship for almost a year. Of how she repeatedly called the women’s shelter. Of how four days before she was killed she had told her mother she wanted to make a difference, to help other women so they would never have to go through what she had endured. She told of her daughter’s violent death, shot six times at close range in front of her children by her husband. She was 19-years-old. Her children survived and now are being raised by Judy.

There wasn’t any loud crying or angry yelling at all the lives lost. The silence, at times, was almost overwhelming. But the statistics aren’t silent.

“Women in this community are less safe in their own homes than on the street,” Ward said.

According to the Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence, there are seven times as many animal shelters as shelters for battered women and children.

Domestic violence is believed to be the most common and least reported crime in the United States.

Women are more likely to be assaulted, injured or killed by a male partner than by any other type of assailant.

Between 20,000 and 44,000 women in Iowa suffer abuse in their homes every year.

It’s statistics like these that are changing the public’s opinion on the issue of domestic violence, Miller said.

“This is a crime. A very serious crime. Public attitudes are what really ultimately controls conduct. It’s not something we close our eyes to anymore,” Miller said.

When the speeches, stories and songs were over and every candle was lit, the crowd split apart. Almost everyone, except the children, seemed to move slowly, worn out by the emotions the event drew to the surface. Two boys, just old enough to have mastered reading, each holding their candle, stood in front of one of the silent witnesses, reading her story,” Stabbed to death by her partner…” they read in young voices, unaware of how sad it was to listen to children comprehend the crime.