STANSBURY PARK — In the 32 years she'd worked at Jimbo's Drive Inn in Grantsville, Joyce Fawson had always felt relatively safe. She rarely, if ever, locked the doors when by herself and enjoyed the daily contact with the restaurant's loyal customers.
That sense of comfort was shattered Sunday night when Thomas Schutz entered, shot and killed his wife, Marilyn Schutz, shot Fawson, then killed Jimbo's owner Jimmie Maddox before taking his own life.
Fawson, 50, was the sole survivor of the shooting rampage that has shocked the small community of Grantsville and closed the popular drive-in for the past three days.
Two days after the shooting, Fawson sits in her two-story home in Stansbury Park surrounded by family. Her emotions swell as she talks of how close Thomas Schutz came to ending her life.
Playing dead after she was shot probably saved her life. "I was expecting him to come get me," Fawson said.
Her white sweater and dark skirt covered the bullet wounds to her abdomen and right thigh as she rested on her couch Tuesday afternoon. She'd just been released from the hospital that morning. The pain in her right leg makes walking difficult.
But it's the emotional scars she carries from her harrowing encounter that Fawson says will take much longer to heal. "I wish it was something I could just wake up from. Those are memories you don't want to keep."
It was a typical slow Sunday night, so Fawson sent the another employee home. With less than an hour until closing time, Fawson had just sent off a final order for one of her regular customers.
Sometime before 8 p.m. she saw a woman outside. Although she didn't know her name, Fawson knew the woman lived next door to Jimbo's. It was Marilyn Schutz, and she was in the middle of a domestic dispute with her husband.
Schutz had already arranged to leave her husband and live with a family from her local congregation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Fawson stepped outside to see if she could help the woman.
"I looked at her and I could tell she was fear-ridden, but I didn't see anyone else," Fawson said. Suddenly, she heard a voice from her side.
"You better get the hell out of the way or I'll shoot you, too," a man said.
Marilyn Schutz darted for the restaurant's front door, but the man overtook her and threw her down into a table inside, Fawson said. "I went for the phone."
Fawson heard a gunshot and frantically tried to call 911 but couldn't get through.
"I was standing there with the phone in my hand and I felt this horrible thud," Fawson said.
It took her a moment to realize the thud was a bullet hitting her leg. A bullet also went through her abdomen, but she didn't realize it until later.
After being shot, Fawson laid down, clutching the cordless phone to her body, pretending to be dead. She heard Thomas Schutz go to the back of the restaurant and fire three more shots. He then walked to the front of the store and Fawson said she heard two more shots.
"I was so afraid to move," she said. "I have never been so afraid in my life."
The fear is evident in Fawson's voice as she spoke with 911 dispatchers just after Schutz ended the rampage by taking his own life. Dispatchers received Fawson's call as a 911 hang-up and called her back.
"Hurry," Fawson can be heard saying over and over in a frantic tone.
The 911 tape, obtained by the Deseret News, lasts almost six minutes.
"Is there anybody outside?" the dispatcher asked Fawson.
"I don't know. Just get them here. I'm afraid to even look," Fawson replied.
She managed to get out of the store by the back door, where she continued speaking to dispatchers.
"Get an ambulance here," she told dispatchers later in the tape. "Two people I know are down. I don't know how many more. Please hurry."
Police and paramedics arrived to find the Schutzes dead, and Maddox barely clinging to life. Both he and Fawson were taken to Tooele Valley Regional Medical Center in separate ambulances. Maddox was pronounced dead at the hospital.
With Maddox now gone, Fawson, who is the manager of the drive-in and has run its day-to-day operations, said she's not sure what the future will hold for Jimbo's. She's worked there since high school and knows many customers by name.
She has a knack for remembering who liked their fries extra crispy or their burgers without onions.
Fawson and her husband were planning to return to Jimbo's Tuesday night for the first time. The drive-in has remained closed since the shooting, with a bouquet of flowers at the foot of the entrance.
"I really don't want to see the place closed," Fawson said, "but I don't think the place will ever be the same — not for me."
E-mail: djensen@desnews.com