An admitting coordinator at Alta View Hospital testified that Richard Worthington looked "confused and angry" and pointed a gun at her, then broke into the hospital through a window on the night of Sept. 20.
Jodi Scott was the first witness Thursday in the preliminary hearing for Worthington on charges he killed a nurse and held eight others hostage during an 18-hour rampage.Scott said she was leaving the hospital at 11:39 p.m. after she completed her shift. She was approaching her car in the parking lot when she heard a noise.
"What did you see when you looked?" asked Kent Morgan, Salt Lake County deputy attorney.
"Mr. Worthington. He was standing there. He had a rifle . . . and he also had a handgun, too."
She identified Worthington and tentatively identified photographs of the guns and added that at the time, he looked confused and angry.
"He had the gun pointed toward me. He then turned toward the building, back toward me, ran down the path, ran to the hospital." Scott said he then broke into a patient's room.
"I saw him hit the window; I heard the crash. I saw him become temporarily entangled in the window blinds, then proceed through the window and into the patient's room."
At the beginning of the hearing, Worthington, dressed in gray jail fatigues, mouthed words in the direction of his former wife and other family members who sat at the rear of 3rd Circuit Judge Sheila McCleve's courtroom. He wiped tears from his eyes, and Karen Worthington also dabbed at her eyes.
When McCleve began the session, she directed Worthington to keep his attention on his lawyer, Andy Valdez.
Valdez said he has filed an affidavit of impecuniosity so that his court costs would be paid by the state if approved. He said Worthington is now divorced and without assets. "He has no means of employment or no borrowing power."
Morgan said the question of whether he truly is without assets will be discussed later.
Morgan said he would call 24 witnesses.
McCleve will decide whether there's enough evidence to support the charges and whether Worthington should be arraigned in 3rd District Court, the trial court.
Worthington, 39, faces a possible death sentence if convicted of the most serious charge, aggravated murder. He also faces charges of attempted aggravated murder, aggravated burglary, delivery of an infernal machine and nine counts of aggravated kidnapping.
Worthington is accused of arming himself with guns and dynamite and storming the Sandy hospital with the intent to shoot Dr. Glade Curtis, who performed a tubal ligation on Worthington's wife in 1989. Worthington had apparently not approved of the procedure.
Prosecutors say he broke into the hospital by breaking a large window and then held nurse Karla Roth and seven others - including two newborns - hostage. A child born during the night became the ninth hostage.
At the beginning of the takeover, Worthington allegedly took Roth and another nurse, Susan Woolley, into the parking lot at gunpoint. Court documents indicate the two women were used as hostages and shields against police demands for him to disarm and stop his siege.
Prosecutors say he shot Roth, 37, in the back while she was trying to escape from him. Worthington warned that other deaths would follow if the police attempted to intervene, court documents state.
Nurse Margie Wyler earlier told the Deseret News that Worthington was remorseful and angry about the shooting. She believes Roth was shot after trying to wrestle one of the guns away from Worthington.
" `She had to be a Rambo. She had to push it,' is what he said. He said he hadn't planned it. He said he hadn't wanted that to happen," said Wyler.
Worthington repeatedly demanded to be told the whereabouts of Curtis and expressed his intent to kill him. He is also accused of ordering one of the hostages, Adam Cisneros, to retrieve a box of dynamite from a flower bed in front of the hospital.
Witnesses said Worthington threatened to kill Cisneros's girlfriend, Christian Downey, and her unborn daughter if Cisneros did not return after a certain time with the explosive device. Cisneros returned with it and Worthington finished assembling it during the 18-hour ordeal while he held the eight remaining hostages.
Wyler said Worthington made continued threats against the hostages during the night and held a detonator switch to the dynamite in his hands. He finally gave up the ordeal after police brought his wife and LDS bishop inside the hospital.
Defense attorneys received permission to have psychological evaluations performed for Worthington, but no defense witnesses are expected to testify during the preliminary hearing.
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Karen Worthington won't comment on suit
Karen Worthington, former wife of the murder suspect Richard Worthington, would not comment on a lawsuit filed this week that accuses her of negligence in the death of nurse Karla Roth.
Interviewed by the Deseret News while she awaited the start of a preliminary hearing Thursday, Karen Worthington said she and her attorney have not been served with the suit, which accuses her of knowing her husband's intentions but failing to notify authorities.
"There's been more victims than at the hospital," she said. "And I have eight of them at my house . . . I have eight little victims at my house." She apparently was referring to the couple's children.