Kansas student Zaiylah Bronson was killed while pregnant. Deaths like hers are rising

Homicide is a leading cause of maternal mortality, and experts say the problem is getting worse.
WICHITA, Kansas — Dawn Wilson thought the abuse from her husband might stop when she got pregnant. But the mom of four, who was living on a military base in Germany at the time, said it got worse.

“(I was) six months pregnant,” she remembers, “and being drug down the hallway.”

For years, she said she kept the abuse a secret from almost everyone. She was embarrassed. They were having a child together, and she wasn’t planning on leaving.

“I still felt like he loved me,” she said, “so I hid it.”

They eventually divorced. But it was only last year, when her kids were mostly grown, that Wilson finally talked to them about what had happened — and finally sought help to deal with the lingering trauma.

Late last month, the trauma came rushing back when Wilson’s goddaughter, Zaiylah Bronson, was found dead in the trunk of her boyfriend’s car in Wichita. Prosecutors say he strangled her. She was 16 weeks pregnant.

“She was having a boy,” Wilson said, “and that was going to be her new world.”