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West Jordan » When friends asked Michelle Welch why she didn't break up with her boyfriend, she brushed them off, even after fights that brought police to her house.
"I think we all worried about her when we saw the police outside, but she'd say, 'Oh, no, he didn't hurt me,' " said friend and neighbor Linda Christensen. Instead, Welch worried about the well-being of her on-again, off-again boyfriend, 43-year-old Gary Howard.
"That was her thing. 'If I kick him out, where does he go?' " Christensen said. Once, when Christensen pushed Welch to end the relationship, Welch replied: "'Well, I'm a little afraid of him.' "
Early Saturday morning, police again arrived at her house in the 6800 block of Triumph Lane (1050 West), said West Jordan police Sgt. Drew Sanders. At about 2:50 a.m., Howard called a friend and said he had shot her once with a shotgun, killing her.
Officers believe he had been drinking, and when they arrived at the house he barricaded himself inside with the gun, threatening suicide. Police reached him on the phone and he told negotiators he had shot her accidentally, Sanders said. As the morning wore on, he stopped talking to police. Officers heard him shoot himself at about 7 a.m.
"She was a good person and she didn't deserve this," Christensen said. "She was generous to a fault, and that's what did her in."
Welch made a living helping other people get through emergencies as a night dispatcher for the
Welch was also a caregiver among her friends. After Christensen, a dispatch supervisor, had a heart attack, it was Welch who stopped by with gifts.
"Anybody that had problems at home, she'd always take care of them," she said. "She'd take them in, give them a room to stay in."
Welch had never married, and about six years ago she met Howard, a relationship Christensen likened to "[taking] in strays."
Though he drank and had had difficulty finding a job, Christensen said, he helped her out around the house. Neighbors like Cheryn McNicol said Howard also assisted with projects in their houses.
"He was the first person to talk to me when I moved in," McNicol said.
Howard lived in Sandy but often was at Welch's Triumph Lane home. Welch picked out the lot and built the house on the gated street of new, well-kept homes.
She had four dogs, two toy fox terriers and two Chinese crested. The dogs Saturday were being taken care of by friends, including Christensen, who took in the two Chinese crested. They skittered about late Saturday morning in similar blue and pink dog shirts to protect their sensitive, hairless skin. Another friend took the terriers.
Christensen knew something was wrong Saturday morning when she saw them running loose.
"I thought, something's not right ... because they were her life," she said. "I just feel grief. I just feel sorry for her."
lwhitehurst@sltrib.com
