A West Salt Lake woman will undergo a mental evaluation to determine whether she was mentally ill when she took a Salt Lake firetruck for a joy ride in April.
Third District Judge Dennis Fuchs allowed Shirley Jean Shay, 42, to change her plea from guilty to joy riding, a third-degree felony, to guilty but mentally ill and ordered her to undergo a psychiatric evaluation during a court hearing Monday.Defense attorney David Finlayson said two psychiatrists will conduct two independent evaluations during a 90-day period at the Utah State Hospital. The psychiatrists will make recommendations about Shay's mental condition and Fuchs will likely base his sentence on those results.
Ultimately, Shay desires to get to the root of "whatever emotional illness she has," Finlayson said. "She's very cooperative and wants to get better."
According to a Salt Lake police report, on April 11 officers were at the scene of a domestic violence call at 657 S. Redwood Road about 2:30 a.m. when Shay approached them saying she was "wasted" and asked them to help her find her car so she could drive home. An officer, instead, called her a cab.
The next time the officer saw her, Shay was driving away in a Salt Lake firetruck that had been left idling nearby. The officer tried to stop her but the woman led police on an hourlong chase that ended in Layton.
The truck received $5,000 in damage, but no one was hurt.
Shay said after a court hearing last week she blames Salt Lake police officers for what happened. She believes the officers should have at least put her in the back of a patrol car or taken her to jail while she sobered up.
Shay admitted she was taking Prozac and had been drinking before the incident. When she felt the officers did not want to help her, Shay said it triggered anger from her childhood.
"My emotions were so overwhelming at the time that I just acted spontaneously," she said.
Shay said she was in a blackout while driving the truck and remembers little of the chase.