Olathe ? The new husband of a social worker killed when she went to a boy’s home to be sure he was taking his medication doesn’t want to see such home visits discontinued, but he’s pushing efforts to prevent another tragedy.

Teri Lea Zenner, 26, was stabbed to death Aug. 17 at the Overland Park home of Andrew R. Ellmaker, 17. Charged as a juvenile with first-degree murder, Ellmaker made a brief court appearance Tuesday before a judge who ordered a mental evaluation to determine if he can face trial. The state wants to try him as an adult.

On Wednesday, Matt Zenner and other relatives attended a meeting of the Johnson County Mental Health Center’s governing board, which has pledged a “full and free” review of its policies on home visits.

“We want to exhaust every remedy possible to avoid letting this happen again,” said board chairman Wayne Vennard. “We want a full and free discussion of this tragedy. We don’t want to hurry it so the report would be incomplete.”

A safety committee has been formed, and executive director David Wiebe said he and his staff would be going through home visit guidelines, interviewing caseworkers and possibly seeking advise from a national consultant.

The center’s employees make about 1,000 home visits a week, and county commissioner Doug Wood wants them halted while the matter is studied. Mental health experts don’t favor that approach, and neither does Matt Zenner.

“I disagree with that 100 percent,” he said. “Rather than making a snap decision and a quick fix to one problem, it would have just opened up a whole new set of problems. She helped 99 people, and one person turned on her. If we stopped home visits, we are saving one person and hurting 99. We need a policy in effect where we help 100 and hurt no one.”

Zenner recommended that social workers be equipped with global-positioning pagers they could use to call 911. Wiebe said he supported the idea.

“I’m not sure about the technology, and I want to find out how these things work, but if the technology is out there, we ought to be using them,” he said.

Matt Zenner, left, is comforted by his sister Brianne, after speaking to a mental health board advocating the use of panic pagers for social workers at the Johnson County Multipurpose Center in Mission. Zenner's wife of three months, Teri, was killed by a mental patient with whom she was working.

Matt Zenner married Teri on May 22. He was concerned about the home visits his wife had to make but she tried to reassure him.

“She was so dedicated to her patients she didn’t see it,” he said. “She told me not to worry about it. If patients were that way, she wouldn’t be working with them.”

On the afternoon of Aug. 17 Teri called him, saying she was making a short visit to be sure a client was taking his medication and promising to call back in 10 or 15 minutes.

When he didn’t hear from her, Zenner kept trying to call. He estimated he made as many as 65 calls in 2 1/2 hours, with no response.

“This is the most tragic thing that has happened in my life and will ever happen in my life,” Zenner said in an interview. “But rather than sit around asking, ‘Why me? Why me? Why did you do this?’ and turning into a cocoon and not doing anything, this has made me fight for change.”

His request that social workers get pagers is just a first step. Zenner said he planned to ask the Kansas Legislature to provide more money for the state’s mental health systems.

“There’s nobody in this world that I would ever wish to have the pain that I’ve gone through, and that’s why I’m doing everything I possibly can,” Zenner said.