Two years into their marriage, Vanessa Quinn and her husband, Richard, were on their way to pick out new wedding bands to replace the ones they already had. They had driven separate vehicles to Trolley Square on Monday and were headed toward each other in the mall when the gunman shot and killed Vanessa.

Richard was ushered out of the building without knowing whether anything happened to his wife. After calling various hospitals trying to find her, he learned the tragic news. Late Tuesday, Richard Quinn issued a statement. "My best friend, my wife, Vanessa Quinn, needlessly left us Monday evening at Trolley Square. I want to thank all of our friends and family for their love and support in this tragic time of need."

Her father Kenny Antrobus, who lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she grew up, said, "I always pray to God. I always pray to take me before you ever take one of my kids," he said, his voice cracking with emotion. "I wanted to die when I first heard, but I know Vanessa would want me to be here for her sisters and her mom. She was the glue that held our family together."

Antrobus said his daughter loved sports and played a lot of them while growing up.

"She could run like a gazelle, and she could bench press 550 pounds with her legs," he said. He said Vanessa also had a tendency to pick up stray dogs and giving them a home.

"She has one that she calls 'Stray' and another named 'Jack,"' he said. "She loved animals."

Vanessa Quinn moved to Salt Lake City to work here during the 2002 Winter Olympics and ended up staying after falling in love with Utah's mountains.

"She thought it would be a good thing to add to her resume; she loved sports," Antrobus said.

After hearing the news of his daughter's death, Antrobus said, all kinds of memories of her flooded his mind, including her first soccer goal when she was a child.

Quinn went on to play for the Division 1 women's soccer team at University of Cincinnati in Ohio, where her sister was one of her teammates. She has two sisters who also live in Ohio; she was a middle child.

"I have three beautiful daughters; they all look like their mother," her father said. "But one of them was taken from me. I lost a piece of my heart today, and I'll never get it back."

Antrobus said he hopes the officer who "stepped in and stopped all the nonsense" will be honored by the president of the United States "for taking out that animal that shot my daughter."

"I would love to shake his hand and thank him for fighting to save my daughter," he said. "He saved a lot of lives. I wish one of them would have been Vanessa, but that's how it has to be."