10/17/13
A Web of Terror : Survivors of Seige at Utah Maternity Ward Try to Understand What Made Richard Worthington Do What He Did - Los Angeles Times
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YOU ARE HERE: LAT Hom e → Collections → Families
A Web of Terror : Survivors of Seige at Utah Maternity
Ward Try to Understand What Made Richard Worthington
Do What He Did
Oct ober 06, 1991 | ROBIN ABCARIAN | TIMES STAFF WRITER
SALT LAKE CITY — Luella Worthington cannot hold back the tears. Speaking from the Cottonwood
Cove Trailer Court in Murray, a town just minutes away from here, her voice chokes with emotion as she
speaks of her 39-year-old son, Richard.
"He is very loving and sorry and remorseful," she says. "I think that something just went, mentally."
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No one knows exactly what caused Richard Worthington, a devout Mormon and 39-year-old father of
eight, to snap two weeks ago. Close to midnight on Friday, Sept. 20, police say, he stormed a hospital
maternity ward with a handgun, a shotgun and a bomb powerful enough to blow up half a city block. He
intended to kill the doctor who had performed a tubal ligation on his wife two years ago, because, he said,
he had one more baby in heaven waiting to be born.
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By the time the siege ended 18 hours later, a nurse lay dead, a baby had been born and two families were
shattered.
The slain nurse, Karla Roth, was the mother of four children. Her husband, David, says they, too, wanted
one more child and were planning to start trying later this fall.
Nineteen-year-old Christan Downey, in the hospital to deliver her first child, gave birth while a hostage.
Nurse Susan Woolley, who had to help deliver the baby, also had to watch Roth die. Margie Wyler,
another nurse, managed to gain Worthington's trust enough to encourage him to surrender. And two
mothers who were wrenched from their newborns waited for an unbearable amount of time to find out
what had become of their babies.
But more than just the immediate players were consumed by the drama; the entire community reeled
from the events. Sandy, 15 miles south of the Utah capital, is a town knit by common religious beliefs
and strong family values. Its residents are trying to come to terms with how a man considered by many
to be industrious, devout and kind could sacrifice everything he holds dear to enact an incomprehensible
articles.latimes.com/1991-10-06/news/vw-161_1_richard-worthington
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10/17/13
A Web of Terror : Survivors of Seige at Utah Maternity Ward Try to Understand What Made Richard Worthington Do What He Did - Los Angeles Times
People Running Am ok
Em otions
scheme of revenge. Could a father of eight really snap because he wanted one more child?
Margie Wyler, a 37-year-old labor and delivery nurse was certain she was a goner. Death wouldn't be the
worst thing, she thought. What terrified her was the thought of leaving her 11 children motherless. Her 6month-old baby, Katie, would never remember her.
When Worthington came crashing into the hospital's Women's Center, with its private rooms and
nursery radiating from the nursing station, Wyler was attending Downey, who was about to give birth. At
Downey's side were her boyfriend, Adam Cisneros, and her sister, Carre. Dr. Glade Curtis, the
obstetrician whom Worthington had come to kill, had just left the room. Suddenly, a man was screaming
obscenities in the hallway. His tone left no doubt: He had come intending mayhem.
Jae Lowder's newborn, Bryan, had just been wheeled into the hallway by a nurse when she heard the
commotion from her bed.
"I thought, 'I gotta get my son,' says Lowder, 35. "But the door to my room made noise when it was
opened, so that would draw attention. . . . I heard him yell, 'Get the baby in the room.' And then I heard
him shoot."
Bryan stopped crying. Lowder felt certain her baby was dead.
In moments, it became clear that Worthington was looking for Curtis, the doctor who had tied his wife's
tubes after the birth of their seventh son. Nathan was the last of Karen Worthington's eight surviving
children who range in age from 2 to 17; two girls died shortly after birth.
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The Worthingtons' neighbors and friends say the tubal ligation was increasingly distressing for Richard.
He threatened both divorce and suicide over it. He came to believe that Curtis had performed the
operation on his wife without her knowledge or consent--after she had fallen asleep.
"Those doctors raped my wife!" Worthington yelled at the nurses. "Get Dr. Curtis in here! I'm gonna die
and you're all gonna die with me!" He had come to the hospital armed with a shotgun, a .357-caliber
handgun and a bomb of 42 sticks of dynamite--big enough, authorities said later, to take out half a city
block.
As Worthington rounded up hostages, Curtis managed to slip into an office and dial 911. He and a nurse
were able to scoop several newborns into two bassinets and spirit them out of the Women's Center.
"I feel very strongly that if Dr. Curtis had come into the room, we all would have died," Margie Wyler says.
"The very best thing he could have done was stay out of it."
Soon after, Worthington grabbed two nurses, Roth and Susan Woolley, and shepherded them at gunpoint
down a stairwell and onto a sidewalk in front of the Women's Center. There was a struggle, police say,
during which the 37-year-old Roth tried to grab Worthington's gun. He shot her, and the bullet pierced her
aorta, a fatal wound.
"She had to be a Rambo," Worthington told Wyler after he forced Woolley back into the Women's Center.
"She had to push it."
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A Web of Terror : Survivors of Seige at Utah Maternity Ward Try to Understand What Made Richard Worthington Do What He Did - Los Angeles Times
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