County attorneys and victim advocates report rising caseloads, warn of possible federal funding cuts

County Attorney Dane Murray and staff told the Cache County Council on Jan. 9 that the county's special-victims caseload has risen sharply and that federal grant funding could decline, forcing difficult local choices.

Andrew Crane of the county attorney's office said the office currently staffs three special-victims prosecutors and two investigators funded through grant programs and that the current grant cycle runs on a two-year timetable. "We've used our investigators often and they are an indispensable resource," Crane said.

Sarah Owen, the county's Victim Advocate Supervisor, told the council the office's quarterly reporting had recorded 301 new victims and 654 total victims in one quarter and 275 new victims and 688 total victims in another. She cautioned that those federal-reporting categories likely undercount the true number of victims served. "Numbers don't equate to every single person," Owen said, adding that many victims do not come forward.

Owen walked the council through a single long-running child-sex-abuse prosecution she said originated with disclosures when the victim was 14. The defendant, she said, was charged in 2019 with five counts of rape of a child and five counts of sodomy on a child, convicted at trial and sentenced to 50 years to life; an appeal was denied in 2024. Owen introduced the case to underscore the length and trauma of prosecution for victims and families.

Scott Bodley, director of the Children's Justice Center, said the center recorded 222 forensic interviews in 2025 and that a broader tally of people who come through the center ' including law enforcement, medical providers and support staff ' reached 1,848 individuals after the office began tracking that metric in March 2025. He said monthly interview averages rose from about 20 per month in 2025 to 27 per month in early 2026.

Murray said the office has seen 643 cases in the last reporting year, compared with a three-year total that averaged about 410 cases. He said the increase includes VAWA-covered matters and other special-victim categories such as internet-facilitated crimes against children, sex-offender registry violations and elder abuse.

Given the caseload trend and uncertainty about future federal funding, the county attorney urged continued local coordination with CAPSA and law enforcement. Murray and CAPSA staff described plans to implement a domestic-violence high-risk team that will use lethality-assessment protocols to identify cases at the greatest risk of lethal outcomes and coordinate targeted interventions. "It's been shown that some domestic-violence homicides are predictable and preventable using lethality assessment," Murray said.

Council members asked whether training or turnover in law enforcement could explain changes in referral patterns; staff said a mix of factors, including improved referral practices after training, investigator availability and larger social trends, all contribute to year-over-year changes.

The presentations were given to satisfy semiannual grant-reporting requirements for VAWA and VOCA and to update the council on staffing, caseloads and a push toward improved coordinated responses to high-risk domestic-violence cases.