Costumed gunman kills five in Valentine’s Day rampage
February 15, 2007
SALT LAKE CITY – Most were there to buy Valentine’s Day gifts. Mother and daughter, father and son, lovers. They were visiting a card shop and stopping for a bite to eat at Trolley Square.
The outcome, however, had nothing to do with bliss: Five people were gunned down at random and four others were injured.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” said Jenny Campbell of Harrison, Ohio, near Cincinnati, whose sister, Vanessa Quinn, 29, was killed.
“She was saying Salt Lake was the safest. … She loved biking, running. She loved nature. She just loved Salt Lake,” Campbell said of her sister, a Cincinnati native and a four-year letter winner on the University of Cincinnati soccer team who moved to Salt Lake City about five years ago.
Besides Quinn, the other dead were Jeffrey P. Walker, 52, Kirsten Hinkley, 15, Teresa Ellis, 29, and her boyfriend, Brad Frantz, 24.
Walker and his son, Alan “A.J.” Walker, 16, were shopping for gifts for women in the family.
A.J. described the gunman as “a man in a costume.” He is aware that his father was shot but on the advice of doctors will not be told of his death for a day or two, McDougal said.