Typically a fun-loving friend with an easy smile, Lisa Lee had changed in the weeks before her death Tuesday, friends say.
The 22-year-old Midvale waitress was shot twice in the chest and head about 5:30 p.m. as she stood outside her car at the Center Street apartment she shared with her boyfriend.Michael Joseph Ochse, 38, then turned the 9mm Ruger on himself. Lee had apparently told the man to move out only days earlier, according to police.
Lee's death left her 18-month-old son from a previous relationship motherless, her parents without a daughter and her friends missing their fun-loving pal.
"One of her favorite things was to sit around the house and listen to music," said Dawn Edens, 19, who met Lee four years ago while the two attended Granger High. She later helped Lee get a job at an auto parts store where she met Ochse, who was employed as a parts runner.
"She was always out looking for a good time, having fun," Edens said. "She always had the biggest smile on her face."
"I was in a science class (at Granger High) with her," said Jayne Jensen, West Valley City. "She was real friendly. We had a lot in common. We had friends in common. We just started hanging out and doing things together."
Edens recalled driving repeatedly around the block with Lee because the woman wanted to hear the entire rendition of The Eagles' "Hotel California," playing on the radio.
"I was with her when she got married, and I was with her when she got her divorce," Edens said. "I saw a very extreme change (in recent weeks). We went out a few weekends ago, and it wasn't even Lisa. Lisa and I have been very good friends and she didn't talk much at all."
When Lee needed a job, Edens helped her get hired on at the Salt Lake auto parts store, but cautioned her about seeing Ochse outside work. Lee later quit for a job as a waitress. She was already dating Ochse, however.
"In fact, I tried to get her to stay away from him," Eden said. "First of all, he was with somebody else, I knew."
At the time of his death Tuesday, Ochse faced six counts of sex abuse-related charges in 3rd District Court for allegedly molesting the three daughters of his prior girlfriend. He admitted to police he had wrestled naked with the girls and committed lewd acts in front of them, a court complaint states.
"I never liked the guy," Edens said. "There was always sexual harassment going on. There wasn't one day that went by that he didn't have something gross to say."
Ochse's boss at the auto parts store told the Deseret News that his employee often wondered aloud whether God would forgive him for molesting three children.
"We had discussions about it (the sexual-abuse charges) and about God. . . . I told him he could be saved. But I don't think he took comfort in any of it," said Doug Canada, a manager at Auto Parts Depot, where Ochse had worked for 18 months. "He was searching for answers and really couldn't find anything."
Eden has her own theories about why Ochse killed Lee, then killed himself - mostly centered on the possibility of him going to prison. When Lee asked him to move out, Ochse may have recognized he would be alone, with no family living in the area, Eden said.
"He has no family here," she said. "I know he had nowhere to go."