UVSC coach slain in Sandy

SANDY — A Springville man who is credited with launching the UVSC club hockey program was shot multiple times and killed in the parking lot of a Village Inn restaurant Thursday.

Kenneth G. Dolezsar, 50, was killed just before 7 a.m. He had just arrived at the restaurant at 10600 S. 150 West, where he reportedly was going to meet a friend or acquaintance for breakfast, said Sandy Police Sgt. Victor Quezada.

Dolezsar was the assistant hockey coach for the Wolverine hockey team at UVSC and made personal contributions to support the team, including a $50,000 donation in spring 2007.

Questions such as whether the gunman walked to the restaurant, whether he knew the victim, if he was the person Dolezsar was expecting to meet or even if he arrived at the restaurant in the same car as the victim were unknown Thursday, Quezada said.

The entire incident was witnessed by a third man who was sitting in his car, apparently unnoticed by the other two, waiting for a friend to join him for breakfast, Quezada said.

The gunman and the victim began arguing in front of the third man's car and on the sidewalk at the side of the restaurant. At one point, Dolezsar started backing up with his hands in the air as if to say he didn't want any trouble, Quezada said. That's when the gunman pulled out a weapon and fired at least three times, he said.

"It was pretty cowardly," Quezada said.

The witness quickly ducked under his dashboard, fearing the shooter would fire at him next. The man stayed there until the man left.

"He was pretty shaken up," Quezada said. "He thought he would be shot or killed."

The gunman was described as white man with tan skin, in his early to mid-40s, between 6-foot and 6-foot-3 and approximately 230 pounds. He had thick, black hair tied in a ponytail. The man was last seen wearing a brown suede jacket.

In the initial 911 call to dispatchers, a man first tells the dispatcher the victim is dead.

"Somebody just shot the man. He's laying dead in front of the Village Inn at South Towne Mall," the caller said.

But a couple of seconds later, the caller told the dispatcher the victim was still alive.

"He's still breathing," he said. "It looks like he's moving. ... The guy is still alive."

The caller can be heard in the 911 recording released Thursday afternoon telling Dolezsar to "hang in there."