None of the victims of Sulejman Talovic's killing spree appear to have known the 18-year-old immigrant from Bosnia.
    That's unusual for murders. Police say most killers know their victims.
    But nobody seems to have known Talovic. He had few, if any, friends in his adopted homeland.
    And though his final violent steps through a historic downtown mall are becoming clear, his life and motive remain a mystery.
    Neighbors rarely saw the lanky teen, who appeared as a loner and hermit to John Buddensick, who lives a half block away from the northwestern Salt Lake City home Talovic shared with his family, including several younger sisters.
    "I'd see the girls all the time," Buddensick said. "But he never came out much. You just never really got to see him."
    LaVonda Hardman has lived for 50 years across the street from the home where Talovic family resides. Though Hardman said her neighborhood, near the state Fairpark, is filled with intensely private people, she thought she knew everyone - at least enough to recognize their faces.
    "But I didn't know him," Hardman said. "I'd never seen a teenage boy at that home."
    Other neighbors said Talovic rarely left his house. And Salt Lake City School District officials said that, after moving from school to school in their system, Talovic quit school shortly after his 16th birthday.
    One neighbor said police cars arrived twice at Talovic's home in the past month, although police had no record of any arrests at the residence. A state courts spokeswoman said Talovic had no juvenile court record.
    Talovic's parents, Suljo and Sabira, made no public comment on their son. The young man's aunt told reporters gathered outside her slain nephew's home that she was just as confused as anyone about his acts of violence.
    "He was a nice boy," Ajka Onerovic said. "We want to know what happened, just like you guys."
    Even those in Salt Lake County's Bosnian community professing to know the killer said they knew little about his life in the past few years.
    Fehim Mutafic, a fellow Bosnian refugee who lived at the same apartment complex as the Talovics in 1999, recalled the shooter as "a good kid," though he had few specific memories of the boy, who was then about 11 years old.
    Elvis Hadzialijagic, owner of Bosna restaurant in South Salt Lake, expressed shock and disbelief that the Trolley Square killer was from his homeland.
    Most Bosnian refugees abhor violence, Hadzialijagic said. "We had enough of that."
    About 3,100 Bosnians have found safe haven in Utah from the 1992-95 war, which left more than 200,000 people dead and more than 1 million homeless.
    "That you would try to find a life somewhere else, and then take a gun and kill. . . . It's unbelievable," Hadzialijagic said.
    Like many Bosnians interviewed by The Tribune - including a several who lived within blocks of the Talovic's home - Hadzialijagic didn't know the killer.
    While few outside of Talovic's immediate family seem to have known him during his first 18 years, his final moments have become notorious.
    As hundreds of customers had gathered at the historic downtown shopping center, which includes several popular restaurants and bars, Talovic was in the mall's west parking lot.
    A pump-action shotgun in hand, a bandolier around his waist - and carrying a backpack with extra ammunition and a .38-caliber handgun inside - Talovic started toward a brick courtyard on the mall's west side.
    Police say the gunman met his first two victims in the parking lot, firing off two rounds as they fell.
    "Die, motherf-----," Talovic said to them, according to one witness.
    Talovic appears to have uttered few further words. Witnesses said he moved deliberately through the ground floor corridors, firing round after round at helpless others, sometimes swearing, sometimes ordering his victims not to look at him.
    In seemingly random fashion, showing no emotion, he slaughtered five people and seriously wounded four others.
    Within minutes, four Salt Lake City police officers and an off-duty Ogden officer had cornered Talovic in a children's furniture store and unleashed a barrage of gunfire.
    He died there, alone and still unknown.
    ncarlisle@sltrib.com
    rrizzo@sltrib.com
   
    * BROOKE ADAMS, JASON BERGREEN, NATE CARLISLE, STEPHEN HUNT, RUSS RIZZO, MICHAEL WESTLEY and KUTV CHANNEL 2 NEWS contributed to this story.