This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Brad Frantz and Teresa Ellis: 'They just hit it off.'
With Valentine's Day just ahead, Brad Frantz, 24, and Teresa Ellis, 29, went to Trolley Square for dinner and to do a little "sweetheart" shopping. The couple began dating about six months ago, said Steve Wangerin, Frantz' stepfather. "She was the apple of his eye," Wangerin said. "They just hit it off right off the bat and enjoyed being with each other."
Frantz had another sweetheart: Deijah, his 3-year-old daughter. Ellis had taken to her and the two "girly-girls" loved to go shopping, Wangerin said.
"He was just a terrific kid, had tons of friends," and was close to his older brother, Brandon, Wangerin added. "He seemed to draw the good crowd."
Frantz grew up in Sugar House and graduated from Highland High School. He worked for Eagle Precast, a concrete company in West Valley City. For the past 10 months or so, Frantz had traveled to Rexburg, Idaho, during the week to work on an LDS Church temple under construction there.
Frantz spent his free time with his daughter and enjoying the Utah outdoors. Boating, snowboarding, waterskiing, wakeboard, riding ATVs - Frantz loved them all, Wangerin said.
Ellis, whose maiden name was Blair, was a 1996 graduate of Panama Central School in a small town near Jamestown, New York, according to the newspaper there, The Post-Journal. Her family still lives in the Ashville, N.Y., area. She is one of five girls and also has a brother.
Ellis had worked her way from teller to the assistant manager post at the Chase Bank branch in West Valley City, said Heather Kesner, head of retail banking for Chase.
"She was a very outgoing person who liked to help her customers and co-workers here in Utah and across the country," Kesner said.
Ellis, who had been with Chase for six years, volunteered to be on a team of special bankers who travel to lend expertise. As part of that assignment, Ellis traveled to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
- Brooke Adams
Alan 'A.J.' Walker
Jeffrey Walker
Jeffrey Walker and Alan 'A.J.' Walker: Love for family
Jeffrey Walker, 53, was a man with "a giant heart," friends said, and a great love for Vickie, his wife of more than 20 years, and their four children.
A regional supervisor handling variable annuities for financial services company ING , Walker loved vacations and recently took his family on a Disney cruise.
Walker and his 16-year-old son, Alan, known as A.J., bought four shirts in Black Chandelier moments before the shooting, said clerk Emily Lyver. A.J. was a frequent customer who had asked about working there.
Family friend and spokesman Mark McDougal said A.J. said he saw a "man in a costume," then saw the man "pump the gun and start shooting." The teen was shot in his head and ankle, and had brain surgery Tuesday to relieve swelling, said McDougal. He will need follow-up surgery.
A.J. saw his father fall but does not know he and others died, McDougal said. Still in intensive care, he is sedated and it is too early to tell the extent of his brain injury. But everyone is encouraged by his progress, he added.
Friends flocked to University Hospital, where A.J. is in serious condition, to offer support. He is a junior at Bingham High, where crisis counselors were on site Tuesday. Classmate Ella Tuione called him "so funny. . .a way cool kid." A.J.'s passion, McDougal said, is "music - that's his thing."
More than 200 Walker family friends gathered Tuesday evening for a prayer vigil in a South Jordan chapel. They remembered Walker, who taught Sunday school, as an exemplary family man who doted on his wife - showering her with trips, chocolates, flowers and massages.
The Walkers have two older children from his previous marriage. A.J. is especially close to his sister, Alexandra, who is less than a year younger.
Vickie remained at her son's side Tuesday. She and the rest of the family are doing as well as can be expected, McDougal said. They harbor no ill-will toward the shooter, he said, and extend their prayers to the other victims and their families.
- Jessica Ravitz, Sheena McFarland and Jeremiah Stettler
Kirsten Hinckley and Carolyn Tuft: 'Our hearts go out.'
Kirsten Hinckley
Carolyn Tuft
Stacy Hanson: 'He is a fighter'
Stacy Hanson, 53, remained in critical but stable condition at University Hospital. His family declined to be interviewed, but thanked the community for its "tremendous outpouring of support" in a statement released by the hospital.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with the families who lost loved ones on Monday night. We also pray for the quick recovery of those injured-both physically and emotionally - during the attack," his family said. "He is a fighter and we are optimistic that he will continue to improve over the weeks ahead," they added.
Vanessa Quinn:
Made Utah home
Vanessa Antrobus Quinn
A chance to work at the 2002 Winter Olympics drew Vanessa Antrobus Quinn from Cincinnati to Salt Lake City. The outdoors - and love - kept her here.
She and her husband Richard had been married a couple of years, said her grieving father, Kenny Antrobus of Cincinnati, Ohio. They bought a home in Sandy and got in as much skiing, bike riding and camping, two dogs included, as they could.
"They were so fun together," he said.
Quinn had met her husband at Trolley Square Monday night to shop for birthday presents. She had turned 29 on Feb. 8; the couple also wanted to get a present for Quinn's nephew, Coby. She also has two sisters, Jenny Campbell and Susanna Antrobus, both of Cincinnati.
Her husband was not injured and was declining comment, her father said.
Antrobus said his daughter graduated from the University of Cincinnati, where she played soccer. A highlight of those years: Quinn, a forward, scored the winning goal in a game against the University of Kentucky.
Quinn figured working for the 2002 Games would "look so good" on her resume, her father said. She then went to work for Overstock.com as a manager, another job she loved, her father said.
Kenny, Sue, Quinn's mother, and Coby came to Utah this summer and toured Southern Utah and Nevada with the couple.
But a heart condition may prevent Antrobus from traveling to Utah again. If he were able, he'd like to shake Ogden Police Officer Kenneth Hammond's hand.
"He is a hero. I would have liked him to save my daughter but it wasn't to be," he said. "He could of hid like anybody else, but instead he confronted the man and tried to talk him out of it."
- Brooke Adams
Shawn Munns: 'He is a hero.'
Shawn Munns' family believes he is a hero whose whose fast thinking helped prevent more deaths.
Munns was about to climb stairs to the second-level parking terrace on the west side of the mall when he heard a noise - likely the cocking of a shotgun - behind him. He began to turn.
Two shots rang out and pellets peppered his body, knocking him to the ground. He was the first to be shot.
Munns, 34, used his cell phone to call his wife Jayme, whom he had just left after a birthday dinner for his 13-year-old stepdaughter at The Old Spaghetti Factory. They had driven to the mall separately and left through different doors.
Munns told his wife he'd been shot and to get Jordan and 11-year-old step son Cody away, fast. And he began to run.
Munns made it to the Hard Rock Cafe, where he told employees there was a "crazy man" with a gun outside, that he'd been shot, to lock the doors and call 911, said Jodie Sparrow, his sister-in-law.
"He is a hero," Sparrow said. "He's going to tell you he's not, but he is.
"Anybody in that building that he ran into could have easily walked out and walked right into what was going on. But he went into there to prevent that from happening."
Munns, who lives in Davis County and graduated from Bountiful High School, works as a controller for Larry H. Miller Enterprises.
Sparrow described her brother-in-law, who also has a 12-year-old daughter, as a joker who is trying to be upbeat. The children, who heard the shots and fled the mall, also are recovering, she said.
"It's just surreal. . . . said Patti Weber, Munns' mother-in-law. "[The emotional trauma] for him and the kids, it's going to take some time."
Munns underwent minor surgery Monday night; he has 75 to 100 pellets embedded in his body that won't be removed. He is listed in serious condition at LDS Hospital.
- Brooke Adams