A Sandy man who blasted his way into the Women's Health Center at Alta View Hospital early Saturday and killed a nurse surrendered Saturday evening after holding nine people captive for 18 hours.
Using the hostages - six adults and three newborn children - as a human shield, Richard Worthington, 39, walked out of the women's center about 5:45 p.m. and surrendered to police.About 2 1/2 hours later, agents of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms disarmed a bomb found in the office suite of Dr. Glade B. Curtis, an obstetrician who apparently was the target of Worthington's wrath.
The surrender ended a tense drama that began about midnight, when a man entered the hospital's emergency room by firing a shotgun blast through a window.
Brandishing a .357-caliber handgun, he then shot and killed Karla Roth, 37, of Kearns, a married mother of four, who had been working at Alta View only since Sept. 5.
After the shooting, the man raced upstairs, taking hostages and holing up in a suite of doctors' offices on the third floor of the women's center.
Meanwhile, hospital employees rushed Roth into the emergency room, but surgeons were unable to save her.
Police learned quickly that Worthington was heavily armed with a shotgun, a handgun and as many as 42 sticks of dynamite.
Within the hour, police began surrounding the building as hospital officials began preparing to evacuate the building and the neighborhood to the east.
SWAT teams and hostage negotiators from Salt Lake City, state Department of Corrections and West Valley City were called to the scene.
About 2 a.m., SWAT officers shot out street lights they believed would reveal their position.
The negotiators communicated with Worthington, who demanded police send him other people and family members, requests the police denied.
"What he wanted was other hostages. I couldn't allow that," Salt Lake County Sheriff Aaron Kennard said.
Worthington allegedly was distraught over a tubal-ligation surgery Curtis performed two years ago on his wife, Karen Worthington.
A physician told the Deseret News that Curtis called him and said, "This guy's going to blow my brains out."
Curtis was in the hospital when Worthington entered and was hiding in another doctor's office when he made the call for help.
Witnesses said that after Roth was shot, Worthington took another hostage, a nurse, upstairs to the women's center.
Worthington barricaded himself in a room with the nurse, a mother and her newborn baby. As the police force built up outside the hospital, Worthington forced the nurse, Margie Wyler, to call her husband, apparently in an attempt to get hostage family members into the hospital.
The woman's husband, Dale Wyler, said the conversation was "forced" and he could tell the man was dictating what she should say.
About 2 a.m., a shirtless hospital employee ran from the hospital to emergency personnel, telling them to begin evacuating patients.
Thirty-two patients, including two from the intensive care unit, were removed by ambulance to area hospitals. The procedure, which took less than two hours, sent 12 patients to Jordan Valley Hospital and the rest to Cottonwood Hospital, according to Jess Gomez, spokesman for Intermountain Health Care, which owns Alta View.
After the last patients had been removed, hospital employees were loaded into the ambulances and taken away.
During the evacuation, Worthington broke a window and, according to some reports, opened fire on snipers positioned below. The reports are unconfirmed.
Sandy Police Sgt. Terry Pepper told reporters about 5 a.m. that all hostages had been released and Worthington was "working completely by himself on the third floor." That report within seconds proved to be wrong when a woman hostage came to the window, waved snipers away and blocked any view from the outside with paper.
Families of hostages and patients began arriving about 6:50 a.m. Families of the patients were told to check with LDS Hospital to find out where their relatives were, while families of the hostages were ushered into the on-site media command center, where they remained throughout the ordeal.
At 7:30 a.m., two shots were fired and police were puzzled when phones went dead simultaneously. The phones came back in moments, but there was no explanation for the shots or the communication blackout.
David Wallers, 9702 S. Indian Ridge Drive, was watching the standoff through his binoculars shortly before 8 a.m. when he saw a blast go through a hospital window.
"It blew out from the inside out. Soon after that, a typewriter was thrown through the window."
Wallers then rode his bicycle to a field across from the hospital and witnessed one hostage either trying to escape or take advantage of being released Saturday morning.
"A woman was hanging out the window on the top floor of the east corner of the hospital - where the doctors' offices are - and she was yelling, `He'll let me out the window. Get a ladder.' "
The woman continued to scream for a ladder, cursing with frustration when no one responded, and then disappeared back into the room.
"I could see movement in the room behind her, but I couldn't tell who it was," Wallers said.
About 5:30 p.m., negotiators brought Worthington's wife and his bishop to the hospital. They talked to Worthington face to face from a distance, and Worthington surrendered. Police had also guaranteed they wouldn't kill him.
Unconfirmed reports indicated that Curtis also talked with Worthington before the surrender.
"Everyone got out safely," said Sandy Police Chief Gary Leonard. "It was long, difficult negotiations. The hostages helped tremendously."
The hostages were made up of three babies, one mother, three visitors and two nurses. One of the babies was born during the ordeal.
After police searched and disarmed Worthington, he was allowed to talk briefly with his wife and was then taken to the Salt Lake County Jail, where he was booked on suspicion of aggravated murder, kidnapping and possession of an infernal machine, jail officials said.
Officers searched the building and discovered a bomb in a box by a receptionist's desk in Curtis' office, the same room where the hostages were held.
Sheriff Kennard said the 18-pound bomb was made of 43 sticks of dynamite, five or six blasting caps and a battery cap.
It was powerful enough to blow up an area as wide as half a block, said Kennard. Police ceased radio operations out of fear of detonating the bomb.
"He knew what he was doing," Kennard said of the bombmaker.
Federal, state, county and U.S. Army agents disarmed the bomb with a .50-caliber gun and lowered the device out the window to a bomb truck.
Detectives continued through the night and into Sunday morning, sifting through the doctors' offices for evidence.
"The whole suite of offices were trashed," Kennard said. "He was a very angry man."
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Chronology of events
Here's a chronology of the standoff's events (times are approximate):
-Midnight - A man later identified as Richard L. Worthington shoots a shotgun into the emergency room, then kills a nurse on the walkway outside the women's center. he runs into the women's center, taking nine people hostage.
-2 a.m. - An employee runs shirtless from the hospital to emergency personnel positioned outside near 1300 East to tell them to begin evacuating patients.
-3 a.m. - SWAT officers shoot out street lights they fear are giving away their positions.
-3:20 a.m. - Hostage gives birth to a boy.
-7:30 a.m. - Two shots are fired inside the building, and phones go dead temporarily.
-3:30 p.m. -5:30 p.m. - Negotiators continue talking to Worthington, urging him to surrender.
-5:30 p.m. - Worthington's wife and LDS bishop are taken into the hallway near where the gunman is holding the hostages.
-5:45 p.m. - Using the hostages as a human shield, Worthington surrenders.
-6 p.m. - Police interview hostages. Infant hostages are whisked to Cottonwood Hospital to be reunited with their distraught mothers.
-7:30 p.m. - Sheriff Aaron Kennard announces the drama isn't over. Police begin defusing a powerful bomb. Bomb-sniffing dogs search hospital and gounds for other explosives, finding none.
-Worthington is booked into the Salt Lake County Jail on suspicion of murder, kidnapping and possessing a bomb.
-8:15 p.m. - Bomb experts defuse bomb.
-8:30 p.m. - Nearby residents who were evacuated because of bomb are allowed to return to their homes.