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SALT LAKE CITY — Police were investigating why a man and woman were shot in a Sugar House neighborhood early Tuesday.
Officers responded to a "chaotic scene" at a residence near 1800 South and 1200 East around 4:20 a.m., said Salt Lake police detective Greg Wilking.
There they found a man in his early 30s and a woman in her mid-20s who had been shot. One of the individuals who had been shot was outside the home and the other was inside. Both were taken to a local hospital with serious injuries.
Neightbor Sharon Ewer said she woke up to the sounds of a woman who was screaming for help. Ewer ran outside and discovered a woman who had been shot who was claiming a man, who was still inside the house, had tried to rape her.
"I could hear, 'Help me, help me,'" Ewer said. "She said the man was still inside, he tried to rape her and she had been shot in her hand and her leg."
Blood stains could be seen on the handrail and at the bottom of the steps the woman used to get out of the apartment. She was wearing only a towel. The man upstairs who was also shot reportedly had no clothes on, Ewer said.
Ewer's boyfriend comforted the woman until police arrived.
"He didn't leave her. She didn't want him to go, and he just didn't go anywhere," she said.
According to Ewer, each victim had two gunshot wounds.
Police brought seven or eight people in for questioning to try to piece together the details of the shooting and obtained a search warrant for the home.
Detectives still needed to interview each shooting victim to determine if their stories matched, as well as go over physical and forensic evidence to see if it collaborated either story, he said. Because the man was in surgery Tuesday, Wilking said it may be a day before investigators would get to interview him.
Wilking said police were not looking for any other suspects in the shootings. Investigators would not discuss a motive and did not confirm the neighbor’s account of the incident.
More information will be posted as it becomes available.
Contributing: Nyoko Iyamba
