Before things turn deadly: What can be done to prevent domestic homicide

The living room is dark orange and smells like vanilla, from the candle flickering on the table. On the couch, a teenage girl and a bespectacled 10-year-old boy play with a big, ginger cat named Wrangler.

It looks like an ordinary Saturday afternoon at Grandma's house, but for them, this has become home.

Their mother is in this room. She laughs from framed photographs, sticking her tongue out with her arms around a friend, cheek-to-cheek with one of the babies she would never see grow into an adult.

Physically, Nichole Clifford is also present. Her ashes are in a wooden box engraved with gold, on a table beside the couch. 

She is one of hundreds killed in this country, overwhelmingly at the hands of men, over the last five years where the accused is someone the victim once trusted or loved. In this case, the man charged in her death was her husband and the father of her children. 

Such deaths are harder to process, says Clifford's mother, Delilah McKeith, not only because of all the what-ifs and should-haves that torment friends and families for years, but because of the possibility that  most of them could have been prevented.

CBC News gathered the details of close to 400 such cases in order to investigate what can be done.

We spoke with those who have lost loved ones, as well as experts in the field, to ask what they think could prevent others from experiencing such trauma in the future. Here is what they had to say.

There were warning signs in Clifford's case. Her mother, Delilah, holds out a list of them written  in black ballpoint on a piece of lined paper: Stalking, withholding money and a vehicle for work, isolation from family and friends. Well-known hallmarks of abuse and control.

When Clifford eventually did leave, a month before she was killed, her husband's behaviour escalated to the point that it warranted criminal charges.

He broke into her home multiple times, on one occasion hiding under a bed. Police also laid criminal harassment charges, which were later dropped. 

Nichole applied for and received a restraining order that was supposed to keep him away from her. He was arrested, convicted of breaching that order and then released.

Several days later, police found Clifford stabbed to death in her home.

Similar red flags were present in Daphné Huard-Boudreault's relationship with her boyfriend in Mont-Saint-Hilaire, Que.