They cant talk, but the 50 life-size silhouettes haunting the West Virginia University campus Oct. 4-8 will tell the tale of West Virginians who have died in domestic violence.

The Silent Witness art exhibit, part of a national program, opens at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 4, at Erickson Alumni Center. The opening program will feature live music and a panel discussion on domestic violence.

The exhibit will remain on display on the WVU campus through Friday, Oct. 8, in the Mountainlair Vandalia Lounge, then travel across the state the rest of the month.

These silhouettes, through their silence, bear witness to the women, children and men who have died at the hands of someone close to them,said Jim Nolan, an assistant professor of sociology at WVU .It is important we remember the lives they represent.

Silent Witness started as a traveling memorial honoring women who were murdered in Minnesota in 1990 in domestic violence acts. By 1997, all 50 states had Silent Witness exhibits. The mission of the program is to bring an end to domestic violence by promoting peace, healing and responsibility in adult relationships.

The program in West Virginia began in the mid-1990s as an art exhibit composed of 27 life-size silhouettes portraying the victims of domestic homicide in 1993. Each silhouette had a shield with the victimsnames, ages and how they died.

WVU and the Junior League of Fairmont joined forces in 2003 to update the exhibit. Funded by a WVU public service grant, the new silhouettes represent West Virginians murdered by a relative or intimate partner between 1999 and 2001.

About 85 percent of intimate partner victims are women, according to U.S. Department of Justice figures cited by Leslie Tower, an assistant professor of social work and public administration.

Meanwhile, a survey by the National Violence Against Women shows that 31 percent of American women report being physically or sexually abused by a partner in their lifetime, Tower said.

Murder is the number one cause of death for pregnant women in America and a leading cause of death among women of childbearing age,she said.

In West Virginia, murder victims are likely to be related to or involved with the offender, Nolan added. Nearly half of the states 71 reported murders in 1999 were the result of domestic violence.

The tide is turning, though, thanks to the Silent Witness program and projects it endorses, according to the programs Web site. For example, Minnesota, where the exhibits started, saw domestic murders drop from 27 in 1990 to 6 in 1996, while Quincy, Mass., which adopted Minnesotas model, has had one murder in 12 years.

Exhibit sponsors from WVU are the School of Applied Social Sciences, Eberly College of Arts and Sciences and Center for Womens Studies. The Junior League of Fairmont is also a sponsor.

Silent Witness Web site:http://www.silentwitness.net