Crime maimed 2 other victims: parents

The man had a gun in one hand and a beer in the other, and he waved both around one spring afternoon on the lawn of his home in the tidy South Jordan neighborhood.

A loud pop attracted a neighbor's attention and local police came quickly to calls of shots being fired. The man yelled, neighbors reported, and fired the gun into the air. Family members told police the man was upset and had cried earlier that day.

Officers found the intoxicated 54-year-old man passed out just inside the door of the residence. He had fired another round from the handgun inside the home on Sweet Clover Lane, but no one was hurt.

His wife told police her husband was distraught and had been treated for depression. She said he might have been trying to commit suicide.

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There are other victims of the Chevys shooting who never saw the gun flash but suffer as though they did.

Victims who aren't related to Peter Berg or Jason Rasmussen but who lost a family member just the same. Victims who suffer the sadness of that night and also the guilt and responsibility for their inadvertent role in the tragedy.

These victims are Robert and Susan Martinez, Quinn Martinez's parents.

Today the couple stick to themselves. And after much deliberation, they have decided to talk to the Deseret Morning News only in a very limited way about their family and son.

"This has been really rough on us, and we are really trying to get it behind us," Robert Martinez, 57, said recently.

But in two lengthy conversations with the Deseret Morning News during recent months, Robert Martinez, a soft-spoken man, talked about the years leading up to the incident at Chevys on April 27, 2000.

He talked about the night he and his wife learned their son might be responsible for the shooting that left two men dead and a waiter and mother critically wounded. He talked openly about his own struggles with anger and alcohol abuse since the shooting, about the impact on his wife and the slow road to healing. He is getting help. He is trying to deal with his emotions and guilt.

Three years ago, Robert Martinez was shocked to be pulled away from his work as a truck mechanic for Associated Foods on the night of April 27.

"You better get home," his wife told him on the phone. "I think Quinn's been involved in a shooting."