Editor's note: This story is one in a series examining domestic violence in the Flathead Valley.

Piper Mohler was only 3 when she began taking after her mother. She was feisty and sported a head of unruly ringlets, just as Emily did when she was that age.

"You could barely get a comb through it," recalled Piper's grandmother, Jan Mohler, who believes the toddler also would have grown to adopt her mother's creativity, free spirit and fierce independence.

But Piper’s chance to grow up, and her mother’s chance to experience it, were taken away nearly one year ago, when Emily’s estranged, abusive husband stabbed them to death, along with Emily’s friend Cody Nevins, at a residence in Olney. The assailant, Kameron Barge, shot and killed himself shortly afterward.

Emily Mohler was 42. Nevins was 41. Piper never saw her fourth birthday. And the Mohler family wonders what local officials might have done differently to stop Barge, 39, from carrying out his deadly tirade.

"This abuse had been going on for years," Jan Mohler said. "Everyone seemed to know about her situation and this still happened. The people involved in her case should have all been aware that things were escalating."

Today, after months of grieving, the Mohlers are hosting a gathering at the Stillwater Bar in Olney in remembrance of Emily and Piper. Tom Petty's "Wildflowers" will be played for Emily, who once said she wanted the song played at her funeral, and "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" will be played for Piper.

First and foremost, it's an opportunity to remember them.

"We can't call it a celebration of life, because there isn't anything celebratory about what happened," Jan Mohler said. "Instead, it's a chance for friends and family to come together and share different memories. There is no time limit on grief. You don't ever get over losing a child or a grandchild. I move forward with the hope I'll see them again in heaven."

The gathering also serves another purpose. The Mohlers want to remind people that domestic violence is an epidemic with deep roots in many Montana communities — one that demands more resources and attention.

"I believe everyone needs to be more informed about domestic violence and abuse," said Isaac Mohler, one of Emily's brothers, who acknowledged he didn't fully understand the cycle of abuse before it claimed his sister's life.

"What Kameron did is textbook of what other abusers have done, step by step," he said. "It's a Montana problem. It's a national problem. And these victims need a lot of support."

THE MURDERS shocked the community, not only for their brutality but for the documented history of abuse that led up to them. And while they were an outlier — the vast majority of abusive relationships do not end in homicide — the killings show what can happen when cases fall through the cracks of the local justice system.

Past instances of abuse and two petitions for protection orders had placed Emily Mohler's troubled relationship on the radar of the Flathead County Sheriff's Office and county prosecutors.

Court documents show that in years past, she had reported that Barge beat her and fractured her skull, killed a kitten by throwing it against a wall and threw baited mouse traps at his daughters, among other transgressions. A month before the murders, she told deputies he had tried to strangle her with a hooded sweatshirt, and that he said he would kill her that summer.

"The fact that she said all of that and that no one called them in for questioning says a lot. She needed protection," Jan Mohler said. "I think Emily felt like she did everything she could and it wasn't enough."

The case exposed lapses in communication between the sheriff's office and the county attorney's office, leaving some to wonder why four deaths were not prevented. Frank Garner, a Republican state representative and former Kalispell police chief, told a legislative committee in March that the killings revealed "a number of system failures."

Jan Mohler said she doesn't blame any one person or department for the deaths of her daughter and granddaughter, but she wants to know that local officials are working to improve how they respond to domestic violence and support victims.

Although assaults by intimate partners and family members take up a large share of law enforcement time and resources in Flathead County, victim advocates say there is still a dearth of available resources, as well as a lack of urgency among local officials.

"This is one of the most pressing problems in our state and nationally, and it does not receive that type of response anywhere," said Hilary Shaw, executive director of the Abbie Shelter in Kalispell, the county's primary resource for domestic violence survivors. "It's an issue that is overwhelming almost every part of the system, but the time and energy invested into helping it doesn't match that. That's the case on the local level, and at the state."

BEFORE THE pandemic, Flathead County Attorney Travis Ahner and Sheriff Brian Heino had been meeting regularly with other professionals to discuss domestic violence cases in the valley. The goal was to foster teamwork and coordination among various agencies.

But Ahner said those talks stopped happening as regularly some 18 months ago, largely because people began working remotely.

"We had a few prosecutors, the sheriff, a deputy, an Abbie Shelter representative and our victims' advocate, and we would all get together weekly before the pandemic. We would review our responses to incidents and critique what had happened," Ahner said. "Those regular in-person meetings still haven't picked back up. It's now sort of a loose connection and conversations that happen virtually, but it seems to be at least getting the job done."

Previous efforts to foster a team-based, multidisciplinary response to domestic violence in the valley have floundered, too. Garner, the former Kalispell police chief, assembled a domestic violence response team some 15 years ago, but it folded several years later when its grant funding ran out.

Emily Mohler's case did prompt some improvements. The sheriff's office is gaining a new victim advocate to fill the vacancy left by longtime advocate Janiece Hamilton, who retired a few months after the killings. And two more advocates are starting at the Abbie Shelter.

The shelter had to eliminate a mental-health position to bring on one of the victim advocates and is wrapping up fundraising efforts for the other.

"We realized we couldn't wait any longer for these advocates to materialize elsewhere," Shaw said, adding that in most other parts of the state, victim advocates are on a county payroll.

Under ideal circumstances, Shaw said Flathead County would have a second advocate as well, though she believes three can handle local caseloads if lines of communication improve between the shelter and the county.

LAST SUMMER'S tragedy also prompted Garner, who has been a lawmaker since 2015, to introduce a bill that expands the use of electronic monitoring of people charged with the most serious domestic violence crimes.

Such monitoring enables law enforcement to track suspects' locations and respond if they travel out of bounds under protection orders. And it can alert victims if their abusers get too close to their homes or workplaces.

Garner's House Bill 449 passed the Legislature with nearly unanimous support. In many cases, the new law will increase the likelihood that a domestic violence suspect is monitored using a GPS bracelet while out of jail and awaiting trial.

State law now includes a "rebuttable presumption" that electronic monitoring should be included as a condition of pretrial release in jurisdictions where the technology is available, meaning a judge would require monitoring by default unless the defense successfully argues against it.

"This keeps judges in ultimate control of that decision but places a burden on the offender of having to explain why they shouldn't be released on monitoring," Garner has said.

The presumption applies only for certain felony charges deemed the strongest predictors of future abuse or homicidal behavior, including assault or strangulation of a partner or family member, stalking and violations of protection orders.

"When it comes to electronic monitoring, I think the next step for us is to find the funding resources to expand this across the state," Garner said in an interview. "I think the other thing that we can look at is the resources that we put into programs, whether it be counseling or others that have an impact on recidivism. And I think the other thing is, how do we make sure that victims have all the resources they need to keep themselves safe, and make decisions that don't put them in these kinds of conditions."

THE NEW law and the new victim advocates in Flathead County are promising steps, but there is still much work to be done.

At the state level, the Montana Domestic Violence Fatality Review Commission — a panel of 20 experts from various disciplines appointed by the state attorney general — reviews domestic homicide cases across the state, searches for patterns and identifies gaps in the system for preventing and responding to abuse.

A few of the commission's recommendations have been implemented since its first biennial report was issued in 2005.

In 2015, for example, the commission recommended Montana adopt a law making strangulation of a partner or family member a felony offense. Prosecutors had been charging strangulation suspects with aggravated assault, but the bar for achieving convictions was high.

The Legislature moved quickly, and in 2017 Montana became the 45th state to adopt a felony strangulation statute. Nearly 200 people were charged under the new law within a year of it taking effect.

"Now, with the ability to arrest and charge an offender with felony strangulation, Montana's criminal justice system is saving lives," the commission said in its 2019 report.

But other recommendations by the commission have not been implemented statewide.

Those proposals include more robust data gathering, more law enforcement training focused on interactions with victims, more therapy and intervention programming for batterers, a sharper focus on domestic violence in Native American communities, and the widespread use of lethality assessments — questionnaires for victims that help determine whether an abusive relationship might turn deadly.

Garner said all Montana communities must "continue to look for ways to try to improve our response and coordinate our resources" to address domestic violence.

"The status quo is unacceptable," he said. "This is a threat to our citizens and our communities and our way of life. And until it's eliminated, we have to be outraged and find it unacceptable."

He added: "It can't just be a conversation we have after a tragic event."

Get help: If you are facing domestic abuse or know someone who is, call the Abbie Shelter's 24-hour helpline at 406-752-7273, or reach the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE.

Correction: This story has been updated to correct the manner in which Emily and Piper Mohler and Cody Nevins were killed.

Kianna Gardner may be reached at kgardner@dailyinterlake.com. Assistant editor Chad Sokol may be reached at 406-758-4439 or csokol@dailyinterlake.com.