Police: 7-year-old girl injured as she, 11-year-old brother try to stop dad from fatally stabbing mom

It was my dad that made it happen.”

With those words, an 11-year-old Utah boy recounted for police how his father allegedly stabbed his mother to death last month as the boy and his 7-year-old sister tried to fight him off and save her life.

John Weston Erickson, 41, of Midvale, was charged Monday with murder in the killing of his wife, Utahna Halona Erickson, also 41. He is also charged with child abuse inflicting serious physical injury and domestic violence in the presence of a child.

Police officers with the Unified Police Department of Greater Salt Lake were called just after 6 p.m. Oct. 28 to the family’s home at 115 West Settlement Circle in Midvale. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the couple’s children had run to a neighbor’s home for help.

The girl, identified by family as Preslee, had “blood on her face, clothes and severe cuts on her hand,” according to a criminal complaint obtained by People magazine.

Responding officers found Halona Erickson dead inside the house. John Erickson was suffering from apparently self-inflicted knife wounds to the neck and arms.

He was treated at a hospital before being booked into the Salt Lake County Jail.

Court records obtained by the magazine, as well as by the Tribune and the Deseret News, indicate that the couple’s daughter told detectives she heard her mother screaming for help, so she went into the master bedroom and found her father “cutting (her) mom open.”

Preslee tried to get the knife away from her father but suffered cuts to her hand, the criminal complaint states. She had “extensive injury to her fingers which required surgery to repair,” according to the document.

The girl ran to get her older brother, identified by family as Weston, who joined her in their parents' bedroom, kicking and punching his father to stop the fatal assault. When that didn’t work, he ran to a neighbor for help.

Weston told the neighbor “(his) father was trying to kill his mother,” the court records state.

Officers who went to the couple’s home found Halona Erickson on the floor of the bedroom. John Erickson was on the bed with “deep lacerations” to his neck and arms, the Tribune reported.

As officers treated his wounds, he admitted stabbing her.

“I just (expletive) snapped,” he told the officers, according to the complaint. “One of the sweetest people around took the brunt of my rage.”

“(Erickson) admitted that he cut Utahna’s throat and knew she was going to die,” the document states, according to People.

Halona Erickson’s family released a statement following her slaying in which they wrote that their hearts had been “crushed” by the loss of the woman they described as “the most beautiful, loving and amazing soul.”

“She made everything beautiful and always went out of her way to bring family and friends together,” her mother, Shirlee Silversmith, wrote in the statement. “The best daughter, sister, auntie, granddaughter, friend and above all wonderful mother to her two children. Her physical presence in our family will be greatly missed. She was taken from us way too soon in a way that we will never understand.”

Silversmith wrote that the family has been strengthened and uplifted by the support they have received.

“The posts and beautiful comments from everyone that knew her have touched us all, and for that you’ve joined our ‘family circle,’” she wrote.

A fundraising page set up for Weston and Preslee had raised more than $31,000 as of Wednesday morning.

“They have a long and difficult road ahead of them that no child should have to travel, however, we will come together as an army of family and friends to love and protect them,” Silversmith wrote on Facebook.

She urged people to love their children “relentlessly” and to be sure to tell family members how much they are loved.

“We miss you, Tahna, and we will forever cherish our memories,” Silversmith wrote. “Until we meet again, we’ll keep the imprint of your love permanently engraved in our hearts and souls, and we will honor you by raising your kids together and staying strong together as a family.”