Sophie Elliott's family believe her fate could have been different if domestic violence laws being considered now already existed.
A parliamentary committee is looking to change how we view domestic offences, close to a decade after the 22-year-old died.
Murdered in her Dunedin home, it was the tragic conclusion to a relationship that was both psychologically and physically violent.
She was stabbed 216 times by former Otago University tutor and ex-boyfriend Clayton Weatherston, who was jailed for a minimum non-parole period of 18 years.
"It started off with hands around the neck, then he tried to push her down the stairs at university, and then he killed her," her mother, Lesley Elliott, told Three's The Project.
Sophie's parents started a foundation in their daughter's honour to prevent violence through education, awareness and empowerment.
Now they're backing a call for new kinds of offences that could alert authorities before it's too late.
A new offence for non-fatal strangulation is just one of 50 changes in a bill to overhaul New Zealand's family violence laws.
"If anybody's gonna put their hands around somebody's neck they've got some intention," Ms Elliott says.
"I think that if a perpetrator has got his or her mind set on doing this… they're going to do it sometime."
Statistics show a victim of non-fatal strangulation is seven times more likely to ultimately die at the hands of their attacker.
The hope is more specific crimes on an offender's record will make it easier for police and judges to identify and manage the ongoing risk.
"She was always saying oh it's not that bad… I think if I'd labelled it abuse we may have taken it more seriously," Ms Elliott says.
Currently when non-fatal offences aren't prosecuted there's no complete record.
Apart from a longer prison sentence, Justice Minister Amy Adams says the real change in new laws would be that decision makers right across the system will "know what a risk this is".
"We've heard so many cases where people say if they'd known what a high risk it was to see marks of strangulation attempts on a victim or to hear stories of that sort of behaviour they'd have acted sooner."
Newshub.
