Starting from 7 p.m. of Monday all the local TV channels moved all their programs. The downtown was surrounded by nearly 100 police cars. The traffic was stopped. A day prior to the Valentine’s Day at about 6:40 p.m. one young person approaches one of the most famous malls of Salt Lake City – Trolley Square. The downtown was still sounding in gunshots. At 6:44 special police force approaches the scene. The mall gets surrounded. About a dozen of ambulance vans were waiting for the wounded ones. Having realized that the criminal doesn’t want to give up the police decided to attack. 50 minutes later the murderer is disarmed.
Casualties
6 people die and 4 are wounded because of these senseless and strange shots. Trolley Square was extremely crowded that day as everybody was shopping for St. Valentine’s. Teresa Ellis, 29 and Brad Franc, 24, have started to date each other about half of year ago. The sudden meeting, which started at Chase Bank, where Teresa used to work, turned into a real romance. As a result Bard and Teresa came to Trolley Square to buy engagement rings. Jeffrey Walker came to the mall with his 16-year old son, Allan. They were going to shop and speak to the manager. Allan only remembers him turning his head back. That’s when he noticed his dad fall. The young boy, who had been wounded in the head, had been operated on several times so far. He still doesn’t know that his father died. Because of being busy, Vanessa Queen, who turned 29 hasn’t managed to get a present for herself. That’s why she decided to meet his husband after work to shop at the Trolley Square. She died before she managed to get a present. Next to her was Christine Hinkley, 15. For a second she left her dad and sister and entered another boutique.
Mysterious murderer
At midnight the police publicized the name of the murderer – Serbian national, 18, Suleyman Talovich. He has never met any of his victims before. Nobody knew the 18-year old refugees at the mall either. On fact few people knew him in this city. Suleyman used to live in the northwestern part of Salt Lake City with his three sisters and mother. He moved to the US in 1993 to be saved from the mass slaughters in Yugoslavia. He moved to the US on a UN plane leaving everything at home. Also, his father moved to the US in 2 years, in 1995. One of their neighbors, John Budensik says, “I see her sisters all the time. I have never seen Suleyman though. He almost doesn’t leave home.” Lavonda Hardman, who has lived on the same street for 50 years, also confesses that she has never seen Suleyman. Suleyman used to live in an isolated life. Police doesn’t know anything about him. According to social services he always changed his schools and at the age of 16 he quit education. . Starting from December of the last year he worked in the texture factory. The director of the factory said that Suleyman was silent and quiet. He couldn’t say much about him.
Madness or new method of suicide?
Salt Lake City, which is considered Jerusalem of America and center of Mormon Church, is one of the quietest cities of the US. The crime level is very low here. Even the local journalists insist that the noisiest crimes include either car accidents or family scenes. The last mass killing was done 8 years ago. It’s when a Russian pensioner, 70 and mentally sick patient, Sergey Babarin entered to a public library on April 15, 1999, shot two people to death and wounded 4 others. Suleyman didn’t have any mental sickness and her deed remains a mystery. The Muslim young man almost had no friends. The majority of Serbs, 3100 people, who moved to Salt Lake in 1992-1995, almost don’t know him. The Serbs are perplexed as they left the war to live in peace and don’t wish another war. The police have already announced that the mass assassination was not a terror act. The murderer didn’t have any political or religious motives. What made him commit such a murder then?
According to psychologist, Frank Farley the motives such as the medical prescription have different ingredients. “There are cases when psychic disease isn’t diagnosed. The reasons may be both family and personal – alcoholism, family violence, disintegration in the foreign country.” The psychologist also mentions Suleyman’s transition age, “According to the law he’s an adult but not psychologically. I suppose that during his transition age he’d had many difficulties – language barrier and culture shock, sexual development, lack of friends and perhaps even lack of social contact.” Farley thinks that Suleyman knew that he’s going to be arrested anyway because he organized the mass massacre in the mall. “Perhaps this is a planned murder,” wonders Farley.
Suleyman went to the mall with a overcoat on, where he had hidden his shotgun. He shot his first victim right in front of the mall. He didn’t express any anxiety, just swore time to time and demanded his victims not to look in his eyes. When the police ran into the mall, he tried to hide in the toy department, where he got shot by the police and ended his senseless and mysterious life.