The middle-aged man was visibly nervous as he stood in line at the Sandy auto-parts store waiting to pay for his purchases.
When his turn came, he put six cans of starter fluid down on the Pep Boys counter. A young boy stood at the man's side while clerk Gaylen Yancey rang up the sale. The cash register stamped the date and time: 9-20-91, 4:25 p.m.Earlier, the man had bought a set of lights from the nearby Parts Connection. Now he headed to the Fred Meyer around the corner. There, he completed his deadly scavenger hunt, gathering ammunition, a Scripto lighter packet, masking tape, a switch, PVC tape, duct tape, a circuit tester, a doorbell, a push button, an electrical fitting and other odds and ends. He paid for the items and walked out of the store at 4:36 p.m.
Richard Worthington had all he needed to build a bomb.
Richard Worthington's mind was racing when he returned to his Sandy home. All he could think of were his guns. He wanted his guns. Where had his wife hidden them? With each passing minute, he became more agitated. Near the boiling point, the 39-year-old Worthington demanded that his wife, Karen, tell him what she'd done with them - intensifying his tirade by drawing a .357 Magnum pistol and pointing it at his stomach.
Then the rantings and ravings started all over again. The guns. How stupid she was to hide the guns. If he wanted to kill himself, all he had to do was to pull the trigger of his handgun. In the next breath, he threatened to kill her if she didn't let him have them.
Karen Worthington ran into the bathroom and locked the door. He followed, kicking the door off its hinges. Frightened and stunned, she promised to retrieve the firearms. She called her friend, Susan Russell, to say she was on her way over to pick them up.
Inside the Russell home, Karen Worthington's demeanor betrayed the strain of the day. When Timothy Russell came home about 5 p.m., Karen was there. He testified later that he knew something was wrong by the way she constantly moved about. Her body shook nervously - almost uncontrollably - and she kept looking around.
Timothy Russell returned the three or four Worthington weapons to his frightened neighbor; he and his wife encouraged her to sit down with them and talk. She refused, fearing her husband's rampage would intensify the longer she was away. By 5:30 p.m., she'd left the Russells and returned home with the guns.
Only a week earlier, Karen Worthington felt compelled to take all but one of the household's guns to the neighbors' for safekeeping.
"She felt like Rick was not being totally rational, and she thought it would be a good idea to keep them at my house until things calmed down a little bit," Timothy Russell said.
Karen Worthington's fears were well-founded. He had been threatening to kill himself and possibly others. At least three lawsuits claim those "others" included obstetrician/gynecologist Dr. Glade B. Curtis and employees at Alta View Hospital.
Worthington's hatred for Curtis began in late July 1989, when Curtis delivered the Worthingtons' youngest child - Nathan. Curtis filled in that night for their regular doctor. Some months before the delivery, Karen Worthington told her husband she wanted to have a tubal ligation following the birth. Now, he was having second thoughts about the procedure. A religious man, Worthington believed such an operation was morally wrong. He wanted more children and felt God would disapprove of his wife having her tubes tied.
Karen Worthington, a religious woman, didn't believe God would care if she had her tubes tied. She had borne 10 children; two of them died shortly after birth.
Neither wanted to budge. Curtis and the nurses tried to break the standoff between husband and wife by discussing the operation's ramifications with the pair for more than 20 minutes. Curtis suggested they postpone the procedure, but Karen Worthington worried their insurance might not pay for the ligation if it were delayed. Her reluctant husband finally agreed and Curtis operated the July 24 weekend in 1989
Richard Worthington never accepted that decision. He called the doctor's office repeatedly to complain. Karen Worthington, too, started questioning the circumstances of the procedure - perhaps to placate her husband. Ultimately, the hospital and the Worthingtons reached an agreement. The hospital agreed not to bill the family for the operation and the delivery and the Worthingtons agreed to release the hospital and Curtis from liability. They were to have no further contact with each other.
But still it gnawed at him.
The memory of the operation shrouded the Worthington's marriage for the next 2 1/2 years. When a neighbor got pregnant, Worthington seemed depressed that his wife could no longer bear children. He warned the neighbor never to have her tubes tied. Other times, he was explosive toward his wife and family for seemingly insignificant reasons.
Karen Worthington opened up a secret bank account and began saving money a little at a time. Her motivation isn't clear. But the family's breadwinner - although hardworking - was not a stable man. Depression and numerous suicide attempts plagued Richard Worthington. At least one attempt required treatment at a hospital.
Neighbors describe the Worthingtons' marriage as being a topsy-turvy one. They remember his hot temper. Her distress. He'd be fine one moment and volatile the next.
Worthington had a kind, considerate side. It wasn't uncommon for him to mow the lawn for a neighbor who was out of town. He'd slip money to someone in need. When a friend went to the Persian Gulf, Worthington looked after his family. And he worked tirelessly to support his own family.
"It was a continued effort - morning, noon and night - to work for his family," said Stanley Shultz, a neighbor and friend.
Conversely, "He was always the first person to become angry during church basketball games," an acquaintance said.
His temper led to banishment from community baseball and football programs for youth. As an assistant football coach, he reportedly belted and tackled another coach during a game.
The Worthington marriage hit a low point in July 1991, according to one neighbor and friend. Richard Worthington had found an apartment and was preparing to move out. He changed his mind and never left. He felt they could work things out. He vacillated repeatedly between staying and leaving.
Worthington's children probably felt like they were walking on eggshells; they knew that their father loved them. But he was domineering and his unpredictable actions confused and frightened them.
Worthington wanted to be a good father, but felt he was losing his authority. The boys were beginning to stand up to him. They talked back to him. He saw a lot of his father in himself and that realization was alarming. It really slammed home when his son lost the key to his work truck and Worthington exploded.
Karen Worthington testified later that her husband left the house on Sept. 20 and returned with a black gym bag and two grocery sacks. They contained various items, including ether, which he used in his landscaping business to help start some of the diesel-operated equipment.
Prosecutors claim his wife and children watched Worthington construct a bomb at his home. Karen Worthington disputes the allegation, saying she didn't know what her husband was doing; that he had gone into a workshop behind the house and she couldn't see him. He told her he was cleaning the shed. In a court deposition, Karen Worthington said she thought he was there about two hours.
"I was doing things inside the house, and I don't know if he was totally in the shed the whole time or what he did," she recalled.
In the shed, Worthington went about his task with efficiency. First he drilled and cut out a plastic toolbox to hold approximately 43 tubes of "Kinestick" - a high explosive he used in his landscaping business. He removed the caps and mixed the components together. They were now explosive. He surrounded the Kinesticks with cans of starting fluid - ether - and packages of nails. When he was ready to detonate, he would need only to assemble switches between batteries and install blasting caps.
That finished, Richard Worthington left home to buy ice cream bars for his children. He passed out the bars and told his kids he was going to the Holiday Spa to exercise. He said nothing to his wife. Karen Worthington strongly denies knowing that he was headed to Alta View Hospital with a bomb to look for Curtis. In lawsuits, others have contested that assertion.
It was 11:30 p.m. when he got into his 1983 green Ford Bronco. Karen Worthington remembers reading the children a story and putting them to bed. According to her statement, she called her bishop about 15 minutes later and asked him to go to the Holiday Spa. She hoped the bishop could calm her husband. However, a nurse later said Karen Worthington told her she knew Worthington was on his way to the hospital with dynamite.
Richard Worthington has maintained that his original destination was not Alta View Hospital that night. He was headed for death - his own. His bomb would send him there. Perhaps he was heading to a remote area where he'd been many times before when he had detonated explosives used in his business. But the nearby hospital was likely too much for him to bypass that evening. Thoughts of Dr. Curtis rushed back into his mind.
Worthington pulled into the hospital parking lot about 11:35 p.m. He backed his vehicle into a parking stall. He wanted a clear view of Curtis' assigned parking space. He saw the doctor through the window of one of the hospital rooms. He imagined Curtis was performing another tubal ligation on an unsuspecting woman and was flaunting his actions before the world through the open window.
With two guns and the homemade bomb, he walked to the front door. He set the black box down in a flower bed and tried the doors, but they were locked. He tried to gain entrance through the side doors of the hospital. They, too, were locked. Frustrated, he made his way through the underground parking lot to the rear of the hospital.
That's when Worthington stopped beside a cherry-red 1987 silver 911 Porsche Targa parked in the stall marked for Dr. Glade Curtis. He smashed its headlights with the butt of the shotgun, then scratched the side and the hood before continuing his search for a way into the hospital.
Jody Scott, an admitting coordinator, punched the time clock at 11:39 p.m. As she walked out to the parking lot behind the women's center to go home, she heard a noise. Startled, she turned and saw a man wearing dark jeans, a light-colored shirt, lightweight jacket and baseball cap standing to her left. He carried a rifle in one hand and a handgun in the other.
It was Worthington.
To her, he seemed confused and angry. "He looked as if he was going to make a decision," she said.
"He had the gun pointed towards me. He then turned towards the building, back towards me and ran down the path and broke into the hospital through a window," she said. "I saw him hit the window. I heard the crash. I saw him become temporarily entangled in the mini-blinds, then proceed into the window into the patient's room."
Scott ran to call the police.
On the other side of the glass, Katherine Egan had been recovering from the hysterectomy she'd undergone three days earlier. She'd doused the lights about 20 minutes before, but was having a hard time falling asleep. The sound of Worthington banging on a door next to her room jolted her from her semi-conscious state. Apparently fed up with locked doors, Worthington eyed the window.
"There was a loud pop at my window and the glass began to break," she said.
Egan sat up and screamed as she saw a foot coming through the window. She dropped on all fours to the floor and tried to scramble through the broken glass to the door as she watched a man with a shotgun pull his way through the blinds. Fear-induced adrenaline numbed her pain as she moved her still-sore body.
Egan remembers crawling to an empty patient room next door, where she remained crouched on the floor until nurse Melanie Walters tugged at her foot and said, "We're getting out of here." Both fled out the exit and along the path into the emergency room.
It wasn't until hours later that Egan learned the gunman was her neighbor.
Worthington - toting a gun in each hand - stopped at the nurse's station, where he cornered nurse Karla Roth. She had worked at the hospital only a month. It was her third shift in the labor unit.
Down the hall, 30-year nursing veteran Susan Woolley looked in on new mother Jae Lowder and her baby in room 2308. She stopped briefly to chat, then wheeled newborn Bryan Lowder into the nursery. Through the nursery window, she saw the back of a man who was screaming at Roth.
"Where is Curtis? I know he's here. I saw him come in. I'm going to kill him! Tell me where he is!" Woolley quoted Worthington as saying.
Roth, terrified, tried to explain that she didn't know Dr. Curtis. She thrust her hands in the air and slowly backed away. Worthington, a gun tucked in the back of his pants, waved the shotgun around in his right hand as he rambled about how the doctor had sterilized his wife 21/2 years ago and ruined his marriage.
"I've never seen a woman look so terrified in my life," Woolley later testified. She stepped out of the nursery to defend Roth. As she stepped into the hall, she noticed Curtis down the hall behind Worthington. She motioned him not to do or say anything. Worthington remained oblivious to the pair.
Curtis followed Woolley's signal and ducked into room 2324 to call 911. He got the impression someone had already called the emergency operator. Nevertheless, Curtis would dial 911 three more times.
Down the hall in room 2310, Christan Downey was in labor with her first child. Carre Downey, her sister, Adam Cisneros, her boyfriend, and nurse Marjorie Wyler were standing by her bed, unaware of the impending danger. Moments before, Wyler advised Curtis that the baby wasn't ready yet and Curtis had gone to the doctor's lounge.
Woolley stepped into Worthington's view and told him Roth was telling the truth; Roth didn't know Dr. Curtis because she was new to the labor unit. Worthington said nothing; he just motioned her to stand next to Roth. He ordered them into the hallway and toward room 2310, where he yelled for Curtis to come out. Wyler, still inside the room, replied that Curtis was not there. Worthington ordered Woolley and Roth to go back to the nurse's station.
On the way, they were confronted by Russell Dent, a hospital security guard who had received a call about a man with a gun. Dent, anticipating trouble, shoved his security badge and radio in his back pocket, hoping the gunman would think he was a visiting father.
"I think I startled him, because when he wheeled around, he put a .357 at my head." Worthington cocked the weapon and did not mince words. He said, "Get the hell out of here! Get the f--- out! I will blow you away!" Dent testified.
Dent ducked into a room and radioed for help.
Worthington herded the two nurses into the nursery, where three babies were sleeping and nurse Mary Bond was hiding. He ordered each to push a baby carrier in front of her. As the nurses wheeled Bryan Lowder and Erich Case down the hall, Worthington fired into the carpet for no apparent reason. Nothing was said after the shot. Undetected, Bond watched in horror as her co-workers left the nursery. She grabbed the third baby from an incubator - Chelsea Adamson - and ran out.
Other patients, now aware of the danger, scurried for safety, but some were too frightened to move. Cheryl Bowen was one of two mothers who had their newborns with them in their rooms when Worthington began his tirade. Both grabbed their children and hid inside bathrooms until police officers rescued them hours later.
As Worthington's bizarre caravan reached room 2310, where preparations continued for Downey's delivery, he made the nurses leave the babies in the hall. He raised his right foot and kicked the door open. Worthington stormed to the bathroom, all the while yelling for Curtis. Less than a minute elapsed before Worthington ordered Woolley and Roth out of the room and down the hall again.
"Maybe he's left the hospital. Maybe Dr. Curtis is gone," Roth suggested. But Worthington said Curtis couldn't have left; he'd disabled his car.
Worthington now led them past the nurses' station down the stairwell - Roth in front, then Woolley, then Worthington. The cold metal from the muzzle of Worthington's shotgun was pressed tightly against the back of Woolley's head as the three of them descended the stairs.
At the bottom of the stairs, Worthington put both weapons in his right hand and secured the door to keep it from closing. He then directed them out the main door of the women's center on the west side of the hospital and into the parking lot.
"I really don't recall any conversation. It felt like I was being herded just generally in that direction. I didn't know where we were going or for what purpose we had gone outside," Woolley testified later.
Sandy police arrived at 11:42 p.m., just as the trio walked out the door. Sgt. Eddie Kantor eased into the parking lot with the headlights of his patrol car turned off. He quickly spotted the gunman and nurses leaving the building and radioed their position. Officers David Lundberg, Lynn Steiner and Lloyd Hansen moved quickly toward the front of the hospital. They took positions with their weapons aimed.
Worthington, shotgun resting on his left forearm, prodded the nurses in a diagonal direction across the lot toward his Bronco. "I'm right here, assholes! If you don't back off, I'm going to kill them!" Worthington yelled when he saw the officers.
Roth apparently decided to take advantage of the diversion. She grabbed the barrel of the shotgun and tried to wrestle it away from Worthington. But his superior strength doomed the gambit. He yanked back on the weapon, causing Roth to twist away. As she was turned back toward the hospital, Worthington snapped the revolver to his waist and pulled the trigger. She had only gone two or three steps when the bullet struck her in the back, fracturing her ribs and tearing through her heart and aorta, traveling completely through her body. She crumpled to the pavement.
"My eyes were focused solely on Karla and I heard a gunshot and watched the bullet as it entered her back and I saw her fall," said Woolley. "That vision haunts me. Seeing her fall, having the wind knocked out of her and knowing there was nothing I could do to help her."
In the same split-second, Officer Lundberg ordered the still-unidentified gunman to freeze. At the sound of the shot, Lundberg fell flat on his back and then - along with the other officers - scrambled for cover. Worthington yelled, "Now, see. If you guys don't back off there will be more of that!"
Both weapons in his right hand, Worthington grabbed Woolley's arm and dragged her farther into the parking lot to his vehicle, keeping her between him and the police. Three days later, Woolley would discover a large bruise where he grabbed her. Lundberg yelled at Worthington to stop and talk about what he was doing. Worthington made a chilling reply: "I'm going to die tonight anyway. Back off!"
When the duo reached the Bronco, Worthington grabbed the handle of the passenger door, paused, then grabbed Woolley again and headed back toward the hospital. Prosecutors believe he had planned to get more ammunition from the truck. As they returned to the stairwell, Woolley began running, but Worthington yelled, "Slow down. Not so fast," and shoved the barrel of the shotgun into her back.
"She had to go and do it. She had to be a Rambo," Worthington mumbled as he led Woolley back up to the second floor.
Lundberg knelt down by Roth and tried to find a pulse. Blood pooled beneath her. Her eyes and mouth were open. Lundberg told her to hang on. "She took one breath, one shallow breath, and then didn't breathe again from that time forward."
Lundberg and Hanson yelled for medical help from a group of people standing near the emergency room. No one responded. The officers grabbed her body and raced toward the hospital, where Dr. Eric Anderson and others fought to save her life.
It was too late.
Worthington had now added murder to his list of problems.
While Lundberg secured the emergency room, officers started evacuating other patients. Worthington and Woolley returned to room 2310, where he ordered all of them to lie on the floor. Christan, in labor, was allowed to remain on the bed. Cisneros asked if he could stand to provide support for her, but Worthington told him no. Worthington directed Wyler to pick up the phone and dial his wife.
The base of the phone was placed on the bed next to Christan Downey's legs. But when Karen Worthington answered the phone, he refused to talk to her. Wyler later testified that his wife told her she knew he was coming to the hospital and that he had dynamite. Worthington slammed the telephone down and shot it with his revolver. The bullet smashed through the phone and into the bed. Flying debris hit Downey's thigh. Carre Downey trembled uncontrollably.
Next door, Jae Lowder sat frozen, weeping. She'd listened to Worthington's ravings and obscenities - including his demand for the babies. She cried out of helplessness, knowing that her newborn son, Bryan, was in danger. She heard him crying, then a shot pierced the air and the crying stopped.
"I just knew he'd shot my son," the West Jordan mother of five recalled. Not until the next evening, when she was reunited with her son, did she realize that what she'd heard was Worthington shooting the phone.
After shooting the phone, Worthington asked himself, "Why did I do that?" He'd asked himself the same question - in the same tone of voice - after he shot Roth. He would ask himself that question several times. The fact that he seemed to have the same attitude toward the shooting of Roth as the shooting of the phone bothered Woolley.
Feeling exhausted and frazzled, Worthington was becoming increasingly irrational. He fired at the window and shot out the glass; he ordered Adam to go downstairs to the bushes in front of the hospital and bring back a black box he had left there; he pointed his shotgun inches away from Christan Downey's bulging belly and told her boyfriend he had two minutes to return "or else."
Cisneros rushed outside to the front of the hospital and grabbed the box. Officers yelled for him to stop and headed toward him to try and pull him to safety. He started to explain the situation, but time was ticking away. Instead, he rushed back inside. The others could hear his heavy breathing as he ran back into the hospital room.
"You didn't expect it to be that heavy," Worthington chuckled to Cisneros. Worthington set the box on the bed and showed them his masterpiece. "I've got 42 sticks of dynamite in here. There's a mercury switch," he said as he opened the lid. He lifted out the plastic bag filled with nails and told them about the ether he had placed with the device.
"He said he knew he was going to die that night and that he was not going to die alone, that we were going to die with him and that there was already a dead nurse in the parking lot," Woolley testified.
Worthington started issuing orders. He broke out more of the window with the butt of his shotgun and ordered Wyler to tell everyone outside he had dynamite and exactly how much he had. She did. He ordered Wyler to take mirrors from the walls and arrange them in the hallway so he could see if anyone tried to approach them from either end of the hall. The nurse set the mirrors on chairs. He ordered her to get another telephone to replace the one he'd shot, and gave her exactly 30 seconds to do it.
Worthington told the hostages he wanted to move them. Wyler asked if they could bring supplies or equipment for Downey's imminent delivery, but he refused. Having already had an epidural, Downey couldn't move. "Bring her in the bed," Worthington barked. The nurses disconnected an IV, an epidural pump and the fetal monitor. The last time marked on the printout was 12:34 a.m.
The five hostages and two newborn hostages went into the hallway, some pushing baby cribs and others pulling Downey's bed. The black box sat at the end of the bed and Worthington kept his hand on it at all times. In the freight elevator, Worthington stood on the right side of the bed; the hostages were all on the left.
When they reached the third floor, Worthington ordered the hostages to line up against the wall and lowered his shotgun at them. "Don't move. I can get two of you at once with this shotgun." Using the gun butt, he smashed the glass to the door of the doctors' offices and turned to Cisneros. "It's your job to get us in," he said.
Cisneros reached through the hole and opened the door. They tried to enter the lounge area, but the bed was too big. "I'll get up," offered Christan. But the nurses quickly rebuked her. The hostages lifted her out and through the door. They put a blanket under her and dragged her down the hallway. Cisneros was told to stack chairs in the two doorways to prevent the police from breaking through.
Worthington set the bomb down just inside the waiting area only three feet from Downey's head. Woolley and Carre Downey alternately held the two babies and helped maintain the IV. Cisneros was told to clog the fire sprinklers with torn pillowcases. Worthington ordered Wyler to find his wife's medical file. When she couldn't find it, Worthington made Wyler and Carre Downey pull all of the medical files from their folders, tear them up and dump the mess in Curtis' office.
He told Cisneros to demolish Curtis' office and occasionally joined him in the task. Photographs were torn from the walls, books ripped and thrown to the floor. Desks were emptied, cabinets tipped over, furniture broken. Each time Worthington spotted a new target, he ordered Cisneros to ruin it. Cisneros once asked if he should break the television, fearing that it would explode. "Break it! Everything!"
At one point, Cisneros came out of the office. Worthington looked in and noticed diplomas and other certificates still hanging on the wall. He ordered him to go back and finish the job.
While the damage was being done, Worthington settled just outside of Curtis' office where he had set the bomb down. Over the next few hours he called his home several times, cursed police officers and continuously threatened to set off the bomb. The destruction continued through the night and into the next morning. Worthington fired several shots, hitting a clock and a computer.
"He kept threatening us, saying, `You and your nurse friend have to decide who goes first.' But the longer this went on, the more encouraged we were. We all began to think he was all talk and no show," Wyler said.
During quieter moments, Worthington shared feelings with Wyler, including dismay over his wife's tubal ligation. "I guess he thought he could talk to me because I have 11 children of my own. That was comforting to him," Wyler said. He also talked about frustrations over his children and about burying a close friend, which he described as a spiritual, emotional experience.
But Worthington's mellow moments abruptly changed to violence: one moment he'd be screaming and the next he'd be sobbing.
One of dozens of shots rang out just before 2 a.m., less than three feet from where Woolley was standing with a baby in her arms. Moments later, Worthington chided her: "It won't do you any good to hide behind there because when this bomb goes off, parts of her (Christan's) body will blow up and kill you," he said.
At another time, Woolley asked him if there was anything they could do to surivive this. Worthington said no, because the negotiatiors had "blown it" and were not taking him seriously. "Maybe I'm going to have to stand someone up in front of a window and shoot them for them to take me seriously," he said. Once, he threatened to detonate the bomb within five minutes. Later he said it would explode in 10 minutes; another time in two minutes. He attached a monitor connected to the bomb onto a doorknob and told the hostages that if they tried to leave, the bomb would explode. He took 6-volt lantern batteries out of a refrigerator in the office and attached purple wires from the bomb to them.
Outside, Sandy police arrested two of Worthington's young sons as they tried to run across the police lines toward the hospital. They screamed that they were the suspect's sons and wanted to get to their father to talk him out of what he was doing. Police restrained the boys with handcuffs and pulled them away.
At 3:23 a.m., Downey gave birth to her first child, a girl. The nurses and Downey had tried for several hours to delay the delivery, but she could no longer wait. Caitlin Cisneros was now Worthington's newest hostage.
The West Valley City SWAT team moved into the building's stairwells about 3:30 a.m. Snipers surrounding the hospital were told they had the green light to shoot Worthington if they had a safe opportunity. The order would later be rescinded when officers heard that Worthington was holding a "dead-man's switch."
A hostage negotiation team was set up at the hospital's main switchboard and homes along 1300 East were evacuated. Negotiators reached Wyler several times, but Worthington refused to talk to them, slamming down the phone. West Valley Lt. Rich Sweeny first talked to Worthington about 5:45 a.m. Communications problems plagued the negotiations throughout the ordeal. The phones went dead on several occasions.
About 7:30 a.m., Worthington demanded food. Negotiators told him they'd trade food for the infants, but he refused. Just before 8 a.m., he began spraying ether, which is highly flammable, into the area where they all were sitting. The smell got stronger and stronger and he threatened to ignite it. He said that when the smoke triggered the sprinklers, he would detonate the bomb. But 10 minutes later, Worthington shot a hole through the window in Curtis' office to dissipate the gas. He ordered Cisneros to finish breaking the window by throwing a typewriter through it. Snipers spotted him stacking flammable items into a pile on the east side of the building.
Salt Lake City's SWAT team replaced West Valley City about 8:15 a.m. Just before 9 a.m., Worthington surprised everyone when he said Carre Downey could leave. But because the doors were barricaded, she went to the broken window and called for a ladder. Officers, however, did not feel they could justify the safety risk by getting close enough to rescue her, so she remained.
At 9:15 a.m., officers were given a warrant to search Worthington's Sandy home. There, they found evidence of where he built the bomb. Minutes earlier, Worthington had called his home and ordered the officers to leave.
An hour later, Worthington demanded that police either allow him to speak to his wife or bring Curtis to him so he could kill him. Those demands continued throughout the afternoon. He also asked to speak to his bishop, Wayne Mills. After some discussion, FBI agents decided that wouldn't be a good idea.
"I'm going to hell for the killing I did and I will see all these people in hell with me, including the babies," he told Sgt. Don Bell, who along with detective Jill Candland, had taken over negotiation duties.
Worthington was again angered about 11 a.m. after a television news station reported it would speak with one of Worthington's brothers. Worthington threatened to detonate the bomb if his brother was interviewed. The interview did not air. At 1:30 p.m., Worthington spoke with a former missionary companion, Salt Lake police officer Mike Hill. Worthington made another call to his home and demanded to speak to his children.
Woolley and Wyler wrote long letters to their families. Even after many hours of mostly unkept threats, both believed they were going to die.
At 3 p.m., Wyler called Bell and asked for formula and diapers for the babies, as well as medical supplies for Christan Downey. Worthington said the only way they could deliver the supplies was through the broken window, three stories up. "I hope you guys find a good quarterback," he said. Exhaustion and hunger increased as the afternoon wore on.
Despite continued phone problems, Bell was able to contact Wyler with a cellular phone at 4:30 p.m. After being told he could talk to his wife and bishop, Worthington decided to give up. He turned to Wyler and made a strange request. "He asked me to cut off his finger and take it to his wife. I told him I didn't think I could do that and he said, `Oh, what the hell, let's get out of here.' "
After a couple of false starts, he moved part of the barricade and allowed Cisneros to go out first. Almost immediately, Worthington spotted members of the SWAT team and yelled, "They've lied to me again. This is not going to work!"
Officers, meanwhile, wouldn't let Cisneros return. Worthington turned back inside and announced he was going to re-arm the bomb. But Woolley took hold of his arm and said, "No, Rick. We've come so far. Will you let me go out and try to talk to them?" Worthington looked at her and replied, "Do what you want."
With Erich Case in her arms, she stepped into the hallway, but refused officers' orders to run toward them. She yelled at the SWAT team to let his wife up so he could talk to her. "We can't do that," they replied.
"I regret saying this, but I said, `But you're willing to let seven of us die!' " Woolley testified. "I was just screaming." She told the officers Worthington would not hurt them or his wife.
Karen Worthington was standing down the hall with a letter she had written to her husband. Woolley said to Worthington, "If they let you have some time with Karen, if they promise that, will you give me the gun?" He agreed and handed it to her. "If I can't be with my wife, then nothing else matters," he said.
Each of the hostages hugged Worthington as they left him. Carre Downey even gave him a photo of one of her children. She later said, "I have no idea why."
Wyler took the gun from Woolley and they all rushed down the central stairwell, unsure if the bomb could still detonate. Officers tackled Worthington as he ran from them down the hall screaming, "Shoot me! Shoot me!"
After he was taken into custody, Worthington was allowed to speak to his wife for a few minutes. Then he was taken outside to a fire truck. He sat on the back bumper and his wife sat next to him. He was still wearing the hat he'd worn through the night. It read: "It's a boy - Alta View Hospital."
No one talked about the irony.
As one officer walked by, he overheard Worthington saying, "She didn't need to die. If she hadn't tried to run."
Worthington also became agitated at something his wife said and loudly proclaimed, "All of this shit is Curtis' fault." Police read him his Miranda rights and he asked for an attorney. Bomb experts, however, desperately wanted him to tell them about the device he'd left before they tried to defuse it. Worthington began to tell them a little, but then refused to talk because he hadn't been able to hug his wife.
Worthington, accompanied by Hill, was transported to the Sandy police station for questioning. On the way, Worthington asked officer Kevin Pepper if they "had many rapes out here?" He said when his wife gave birth to their youngest child at Alta View, he had left her briefly to hold his newborn baby. Upon his return, his wife had a jar on her stomach with her fallopian tubes in it. He then turned to Pepper and declared, "He raped my wife," adding, "If he would have just returned my calls. . . ."
Worthington was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail at 8:34 p.m. Just an hour and a half later, his 16-year-old son, Aaron, collided with an automobile as he was driving an unlicensed motorcycle with its lights off. He was not wearing a helmet. A helicopter flew the unconscious boy from 9400 S. Wasatch Blvd. to LDS Hospital, where he would remain for the next 31/2 months. Many didn't expect Aaron to live, but family members and friends called him the "miracle boy" as he slowly began to recuperate. The healing process is ongoing. His speech and his gait are slow and deliberate.
By 6 a.m. the next morning, Worthington attempted suicide by jumping off a table. He climbed on top, stood stiff, leaned back and fell, hitting his head on the floor. He was treated at a hospital for minor injuries and returned to his cell.
Three days later, Worthington was charged with capital murder, nine counts of aggravated kidnapping, aggravated burglary, attempted aggravated murder and possession of an infernal device. Prosecutors planned to seek the death penalty. Less than a month later, his wife filed for divorce - a move Richard Worthington said was made to protect her financially. Karen Worthington had denied the two had discussed divorce before the siege and insisted they had been "happily in love." She said they had even planned a dinner date the night of the standoff.
County attorneys cried foul at the divorce. Only one year earlier, Worthington applied for a bank loan and indicated he had net assets totaling $208,000. Yet he now wanted taxpayers to pay for his defense, claiming he had no money. The divorce file was sealed, but it could only be assumed the divorce gave Karen Worthington all assets. Judge Timothy Hanson said he had no evidence to believe the divorce was fraudulent.
Worthington tried to end his life again on Dec. 18, 1991, when he caused his heavy, metal bed to collapse against his head and the wall. But prosecutors learned that he had planned the suicide attempt so that he could get out of jail and possibly attempt an escape while at the hospital. On Jan. 1, 1992, he made up his jail bed so it looked like he was sleeping in it. Guards later found him in the nurse's office and a ceiling tile had been removed. He told jailers he was dizzy and began acting disoriented. After discovering empty bottles of Tylenol and aspirin, jailers took him to the hospital. Only after they pumped his stomach did they determine he had faked the overdose.
Family members visited Worthington in his jail cell, but never as much as he would have liked. Visits and calls from his ex-wife soon dwindled to nothing. One evening he called home and his son told him that Karen was not home. She was out dancing. Worthington went berserk with jealousy and anger. The rage resurfaced whenever he called and a man who Karen Worthington had met at a singles dance answered the phone. Sometimes the man drove Worthington's kids to visit him in jail, which also would set Worthington off.
During a chess game in the jail one evening, Worthington allegedly beat up a fellow inmate.
Just before he agreed to conditions of a proposed plea bargain in early March, Worthington asked to speak with his ex-wife to discuss it. The judge agreed, but insisted that armed guards be in the room with them. He and his ex-wife sat at opposite ends of the room. They mainly discussed her new life without him.
On March 26, Worthington was sentenced to serve a minimum of 35 years at the Utah State Prison for his crimes. During the hearing, neighbors and family described him as hard-working, compassionate, considerate, devoutly religious and intelligent. "The type of person you might live next door to," said Judge Timothy Hanson.
During his sentencing, Worthington spoke of his own father, who was shot and killed in St. George in 1984. "I'm not a stranger to death. I understand the hurt you've felt," he said to Karla Roth's family. Worthington said the man shot his father during a dispute, then kicked him as he lay on the ground.
"I didn't do that to Karla. The minute she was killed, the minute she was dead, I felt grief."
Worthington is now at his new home at the Point of the Mountain. But his 18-hour tirade is far from over.
Jodi Scott, who was an admitting coordinator at the hospital, dropped out of nursing school, despite her 3.9 GPA. The visions of Worthington pointing a shotgun at her and then crashing through the hospital window still haunt her. "She no longer trusts anyone," said prosecutor Greg Skordas.
Susan Woolley, a nurse for 30 years, has not returned to Alta View and doubts she can ever return to nursing. "I don't know that I will ever be able to go back and assume the care of patients because I don't trust myself any more. I don't know how I'd react in a crisis situation."
"He's put fear into me that I have never known," said Jae Lowder, mother of one of the baby hostages. "(The prison sentence) at least gives my child a chance to grow up without a fear of him being around."
Hostages Christan Downey, Adam Cisneros and Carre Downey said Worthington took what should have been the happiest moment of their lives - the birth of Caitlin Cisneros. "It ended up being the most horrible thing we could ever experience," Christan Downey said.
Katherine Egan, who was in the room where Worthington broke through the window, is still taken aback by noises. The dark also frightens her. She no longer feels secure and safe.
Younger patients at the hospital have pleaded with their parents not to leave them there overnight because "the robber might come back." Even adult patients still call and ask, "Is it really safe for me to come back there?"
Worthington's eight children no longer have a father. Neighbors no longer will be the beneficiaries of his good deeds. "We spent quality time together. I guess now with his actions at Alta View, that's been taken away not only from myself but the family," Matthew Worthington said.
Dr. Glade Curtis has also been traumatized by being the recipient of a murderous manhunt. His medical practice and reputation have also been tarnished.
And David Roth will never again see his wife and best friend, Karla. "She'd also be very upset that she's not around to see her oldest boy doing well in college, seeing her youngest baby learn how to talk."
"So many lives were forever altered," said Judge Hanson. "The events of that evening intruded into a place we as members of society like to think of as a sanctuary . . . You invaded that sanctuary and made it a place of terror and death.
"The community is entitled to be secure."
Numerous children of Alta View employees still fear for their parents' safety when they leave for work, as evidenced by the recent comment of one nurse's young child: "Please, mommy, don't go to work. Someone will kill you."
Signs of stress-related symptoms can still be seen almost daily in the hospital employees, said Paula Thacker, director of the women's center.
Like a pebble thrown into a pond, the ripples begin in the middle and continue multiplying outward.
"They go on and on. And so have the effects of Mr. Worthington's actions," she said. "The ripples just go on and on and on."