Ex-convict with a gun turned party into a terrifying ordeal

Juanita Lewis was supposed to be celebrating her 56th birthday.

Instead, the Salt Lake City woman spent an hour with a desperate ex-convict who held a gun to her head, holding her hostage until a police officer shot and killed him.

"He said, 'You're not getting out of here,'" Lewis recalled in an interview with the Deseret Morning News. "Then he grabbed me, putting his arm around my neck and a gun to my head."

With blankets covering the windows to keep out the heat, Lewis smoked a cigarette Monday as she recalled the terrifying ordeal.

Lewis said she was waiting for her family and friends to show up Friday to celebrate her birthday. Her fiance, David Duhart, was the first to arrive. She heard a noise around her front porch and asked Duhart to see if it was her sons arriving.

Instead of family, Duhart saw a man crouched down with a gun.

"David let him in," Lewis said. "He said, 'Hey man, you want to have a beer?' And the guy said, 'OK."'

As Steven Mark Sickler sipped a beer, Lewis said her fiance could tell Sickler was going to be a problem. Duhart told her to leave the house with him.

"David ran out onto the porch," Lewis said. "I didn't understand, so I didn't follow him."

It was then, Lewis said, the police showed up. An alarmed neighbor, Michael Proud, called 911 after spotting Sickler sneaking around outside with a gun.

Salt Lake police said Sickler, 45, was a convicted sex offender who had tried to carjack a vehicle just a block away. Officers said he attacked a 67-year-old man, putting a gun to his chest and demanding the car keys. Jace Snell fought off Sickler, who then ran down the street.

On Monday, the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole revealed Sickler had a no bail warrant issued for his arrest. He had violated his parole by getting into a fight with his estranged wife and trying to contact her again. A copy of the warrant, obtained by the Deseret Morning News, said Sickler had also failed to get a job and was uncooperative with Adult Probation and Parole officers.

Lewis believes Sickler knew the police were closing in on him and that's when he took her hostage.

"He kept yelling for the police to call his P.O. (probation officer)," Lewis said. "One time, when he looked out the door and saw a policeman, he yelled, 'Hey, don't point that gun at me!"'