MOUNTAIN GREEN — Oh yes, says Loydene Berg, this past week's events certainly bring back memories.
Not that thoughts of her husband or details of the horrible night he died are ever too far from her mind.
Nearly seven years ago, Quinn Robert Martinez was high on meth and looking for trouble when he walked into Chevy's Restaurant in Midvale and opened fire on employees. He killed the restaurant manager in front of patrons who'd gathered for a night out, then ran outside to steal a car from the parking lot. There he confronted 43-year-old Peter Berg and gunned down the father of two in front of his 12-year-old daughter.
The killing remains one of the most high-profile public shootings in recent memory — and the Berg family is still recovering.
After a young man killed five shoppers at Salt Lake City's Trolley Square on Monday, Berg fielded calls from friends concerned about her well-being.
"To be honest, we all feel kind of sick, Berg told the Deseret Morning News. "It's been an emotional day for all of us."
She has spent much of the week thinking about the victims and their families. She can empathize.
"It is astounding how, in a few seconds, your whole life is changed," she said.
"I mean, my life hasn't really changed. I live in the same house. I have the same children," she said. "But the world looks totally different, and it feels different, and I am thinking about all that for those people. It is overwhelming."
She stayed close to home early in the week, hanging out with her son P.J., her daughter-in-law and baby grandson.
P.J. was the birthday boy that day nearly seven years ago. The family was celebrating his 17th birthday at Chevy's Fresh Mex. Now that day is forever marked also as the anniversary of his dad's death.
"My mind is so much with what people are dealing with today," Loydene Berg said. "So many people affected directly. So many people affected indirectly. It just doesn't go away. Here I am talking about it six years later."
"I hear people say, 'It's unbelievable,"' Berg said. "I see this has happened, and it's not unbelievable. It's very believable."
Quinn Robert Martinez is the young man in prison for killing Peter Berg and Chevy's manager Jason Rasmussen. He also critically wounded three others April 27, 2000.
Today Martinez is 28. He was sentenced to two life prison terms without the possibility of parole for killing the two men and six prison terms of five-years-to-life for aggravated robbery and aggravated attempted homicide.
He avoided two death row charges as a result of a plea agreement. Accepting the plea bargain also removed the right to appeal to a higher court.
Martinez is still in prison, says Jack Ford, a spokesman for the Utah Department of Corrections. The Utah Board of Pardons and Parole has no plans to hear his case.
But Quinn Martinez is no longer housed in Utah. In September 2004 the inmate asked for what prison officials call a "compassionate transfer" to another state.
Sometimes inmates think they are too high profile to stay where they are, Ford said. Sometimes they have other reasons for wanting to be housed somewhere else. Ford doesn't know exactly why Martinez wanted to move, but the state approved the transfer and he is now in an Oregon prison.
Martinez paid between $4,000 and $5,000 for the cost of his transfer.
In heart-wrenching comments during Martinez's sentencing in July 2002, then-14-year-old Whitney Berg told the man who gunned down her father she harbored no hatred toward him.
"Last night in our prayers we prayed for you, and we're grateful to you (for admitting guilt)," she told Martinez.
But rocky roads were to come through the years as the young woman dealt with the tragedy of the crime and her father's death.
"We went through a lot," Loydene Berg said.
Today Whitney Berg is "doing awesome," according to her mom. She is 19 and a freshman at Dixie College in St. George. Monday's shooting in Salt Lake City shocked and sickened the young woman. She went to one class, then left school and went home for the day.
"Mom, I feel sick," she told Berg on the phone. "I don't feel safe."
Berg says she regrets the journey the families of these latest victims have before them. "You work so hard to feel a sense of safety, and it's a lot of work," she said.
"You could say it's a process, but it isn't really a process — it changes your life forever."
Loydene Berg also has channeled much of her healing into writing music and poems. Two years ago, on the anniversary of the shooting, she sent out a poem she wrote called "One Small Act." It reads:
One word can hurt
One word can heal
One touch can bruise
One touch can soothe
One hand can destroy
One hand can protect
One heart can hate
One heart can love
If one small act
became the marker
for the end of your life
what would that act be?
E-mail: ">lucy@desnews.com