COLUMBIA, S.C. - Marva Grayson was set on fire at a Columbia gas station by her husband in front of her 10-year-old son. Anise Hall was stabbed by her husband in Darlington County as she held her 14-month-old child.

They were two of the 30 women killed in domestic violence incidents in South Carolina in 2002. All of them, along with thousands of unnamed victims, were remembered Wednesday in a ceremony at the Statehouse that coincides with the beginning of Domestic Violence Awareness month.

Attorney General Henry McMaster read the names and a brief recounting of what happened to each woman as a chime rang every nine seconds marking how often the FBI says a woman is beaten in the United States.

Organizers also honored two Beaufort County deputies killed in January 2002 as they responded to a domestic violence call.

The ceremony took place less than a week after a study by the Violence Policy Center reported South Carolina topped the nation in the rate of women killed by men. The Palmetto State also topped in list in 1998 and hasn't fallen out of the top five in the past five years.

"We all have a responsibility to end these senseless deaths," said McMaster, who has made fighting domestic violence one of his top priorities since taking office earlier this year.

Lined behind McMaster and the other speakers were red silhouettes, representing each of the victims and one representing victims who names are not known. The line stretched the length of the back steps of the Statehouse.

The roll call included a teenage girl from Cherokee County killed by her boyfriend after he pulled a gun on her when she told him she wanted to stop arguing and 43-year-old Ernestine Smith, stabbed to death by her husband in Chester County just hours after police had been called to their home.

A number of the victims left behind children, which makes the tragedy even worse, said Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg.

If South Carolina continues to top the domestic violence list, the state will create another generation of batterers and victims, said Cobb-Hunter, a victims' advocate for 25 years.

Communities need to do whatever they can to stop domestic violence, "whether that is not tolerating jokes or whether that is recognizing that it is our business," she said.

About 100 people attended the ceremony. Some were family members of victims, clutching pictures and other mementos of their loved ones.

Others were advocates like Vicki Bourus, director of the South Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault in Columbia, who has lost four people she has worked with to domestic violence in her 17-year career.

Bourus praised McMaster for starting a program where lawyers will work for free to help prosecute criminal domestic violence cases.

Criminal domestic violence charges are often misdemeanors tried in magistrate's court. Defendants can retain lawyers, but most of the time the cases are prosecuted by the police officer who investigated the case instead of a trained lawyer.

Bourus said programs like this can reduce South Carolina's domestic violence deaths "if the leadership of this state is willing to put their muscle behind this problem."