Three policemen watched nurse Karla Roth shot to death in a hospital parking lot but couldn't intervene because the gunman had another hostage, according to police and court documents.
A search warrant filed this week in 3rd Circuit Court also indicates police found the makings for the bomb that Richard Worthington is accused of using to hold eight people hostage Sept. 21.Worthington released the hostages, including three infants, after 18 hours and surrendered to police.
Meantime, defense attorneys filed a motion Monday in 3rd Circuit Court asking to examine the .357 magnum handgun used in the shooting, apparently to determine if it could have been accidentally fired.
"It is my understanding they want to examine the trigger-pull on the gun," said Deputy Salt Lake County Attorney Greg Skordas. "My guess is they're looking to determine if it could have accidentally discharged."
The motion was filed by public defender Andrew Valdez, who defended Charles Kenneth McCovey in the 1988 shooting death of a pregnant woman in a Kearns video store.
Valdez convinced a jury that McCovey didn't intend to shoot Anna Holmes during the holdup but that the handgun accidentally discharged when he held it to her head. A jury declined to impose the death penalty and convicted McCovey of second-degree murder.
Valdez, however, denied that he would be using the same defense. He told the Deseret News the motion to examine the gun is a "routine" procedure. As a defense attorney, he said it is his job to examine all of the evidence.
"Our theory of defense hasn't been formulated yet," he said.
Worthington is charged with capital homicide, nine counts of aggravated kidnapping, attempted aggravated murder, aggravated burglary and possession of an infernal device. A roll-call hearing is scheduled for Oct. 10.
The search warrant says Sandy police officer David Lundberg confronted Worthington in the parking lot outside Alta View Hospital's Women's Health Center about 11:30 p.m. Worthington carried a shotgun in one hand and a handgun in the other.
"Lundberg told (the officer who drafted the search warrant) that he drew his weapon and Worthington shot the female in the back and killed her," the document says.
Lundberg and other officers said Worthington raised the shotgun to Roth's head when police ordered him to stop. She apparently swatted the barrel away, or tried to wrest the gun from him, and he shot her with the handgun, said Sandy Police Chief Gary Leonard.
Leonard said three officers were in the parking lot and all witnessed the shooting. None could return fire, however, because Worthington was using nurse Susan Woolley as a shield.
"My guys could not shoot back out of fear of hitting her," Leonard said.
Leonard said Worthington apparently was taking the women to his car, where police later found additional explosives, as well as a detonator constructed from a doorbell button.
When he failed to make it to the automobile, Leonard said, Worthington fashioned a detonator from wires stripped from phone cords and lamps in the hospital offices.
In a search of his Sandy home, police confiscated numerous other weapons and items they believe are linked to the construction of the 18-pound dynamite bomb found at the hospital after Worthington gave up.
Charges allege Worthington, the father of eight, had gone to the hospital to kill a doctor who had performed a tubal ligation on his wife two years earlier, preventing them from having more children.
Meantime, Worthington's 16-year-old son, Aaron, remained in critical condition Wednesday at LDS Hospital with head injuries suffered in a motorcycle accident that occurred hours after his father's arrest.