From Deseret News archives:

Police trying to develop a profile of gunman

Published: Friday, Feb. 16, 2007 1:28 p.m. MST
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"He said if you kill one innocent person, it's like you killed the whole world. It's in our book," Omerovic said, adding that everyone is horrified by what happened.

"It's just sad," he said. "We don't get it. Nobody can explain."

On Tuesday, detectives questioned employees at Aramark Uniform Services, an industrial laundry company that Talovic worked at for eight weeks.

"He did work Monday. He worked 'til 5 p.m.," said Aramark general manager Trent Thorn.

After work, Talovic's family said he came home, took a shower and then disappeared again. A short time later the killing started.

Police and eyewitnesses said that Talovic stepped out of his car armed with a pump-action shotgun, a .38-caliber pistol and a backpack full of ammunition. Around his waist, he wore a bandolier full of shotgun shells.

He shot and killed 52-year-old Jeffery Walker in the parking terrace. Walker's son AJ, 16, was wounded and remains hospitalized in serious condition. On his way into the west doors, he shot Shawn Munns, 34, in the courtyard, wounding him. Munns is hospitalized in serious condition.

Near the Bath and Body Works store, Talovic shot and killed Vanessa Quinn, 29.

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Witnesses said he charged down the hallway and, with a calm expression on his face, opened fire on shoppers in the Cabin Fever novelty and card shop. Inside the store, Brad Frantz, 24, Teresa Ellis, 29, and Kirsten Hinckley, 15, were killed. Hinckley's mother, 44-year-old Carolyn Tuft, was wounded and remains in critical condition.

Stacy Hanson, 53, was also shot inside the mall. On Thursday, hospital officials said he remains in critical condition.

Off-duty Ogden police officer Ken Hammond was having an early Valentine's Day dinner with his wife in the Rodizio Grill when the shooting started. He ran down the hall and got into a shootout with Talovic. Salt Lake City police officers arrived on the scene and, six minutes after it began, Talovic was dead.

Suljo Talovic wants to know where his son got the guns used in the killing rampage. He said he never saw Sulejman with a gun.

"Who give him a gun, give him everything? I need know, like you guys," he said in broken English.

Meanwhile, police and federal agents want that question answered.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said Thursday that it has begun traces on the serial numbers of the shotgun and .38-caliber pistol. While the case has been flagged as a "high priority," ATF agents are running into problems.

"The problem we're running into is the East Coast is snowed in," ATF Resident Agent-in-Charge Lori Dyer told the Deseret Morning News on Thursday. "It's causing a delay."

She said once agents are able to get back to work, they can trace the guns from the manufacturer to the gun dealer and then find out who the first person was to purchase the weapons. If the guns changed hands, the investigation becomes more difficult.

"We have to find out what they did with the gun, did they sell it to someone?" she said Thursday.


Contributing: Deborah Bulkeley, Joe Bauman

E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com

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