Woman and son survive North Ogden murder attempt
Savannah Fuchs poses for a portrait at her home in Roy on Wednesday, December 10, 2014.
Savannah Fuchs poses for a portrait at her home in Roy on Wednesday, December 10, 2014.
Savannah Fuchs poses for a portrait at her home in Roy on Wednesday, December 10, 2014.
ROY — Savannah Fuchs is one woman who is lucky to be alive to experience 2015.
According to the now Roy resident’s own story, police reports and witness accounts, Fuchs, 31, was attacked in her North Ogden apartment April 1 by a man who had stalked her for more than six months and who by all indications wanted her dead.
And although the man, the late Todd Alan Barber, 55, according to police reports shot in the direction of her head several times and beat her on the head with his handgun, she not only lived to tell about the experience, she also says she found miracles in the ordeal that have changed her life.
After nearly an hour of beating Fuchs and trying to kill her, Barber called police to report what he had done and immediately after police knocked on her door and identified themselves he shot himself to death, say police and Fuchs.
“I think it was a miracle that I even survived,” she said. “How strange that I made it through when he had body bags for me and my son.”
Fuchs’ 6-year-old son slept through much of the ordeal that started at 5:30 a.m. April 1 when her alarm went off and she realized Barber was in her bedroom, she said. But when the son did awaken and witness the final moments of his blood-covered mother being beaten, she said the boy saw what those who hear his story believe was an angel watching out for the both of them.
A Jewish woman, Fuchs attributes her survival to the angel her son says motioned him to stay upstairs; to a Hebrew prayer she said during the beating; and to a prayer a Christian man said the night before after helping her with a project.
“The prayer went on and on,” she recalled. “He said, ‘Keep this home safe.’ “
Now a survivor, she believes the spiritual message was the key to what she describes as a miracle that she plans to document in a book about her ordeal.
Fuchs said following the prayer the night before, she dreamed of having to fight someone off, which may have mentally prepared her for the attack, including incorporating ideas she’d learned in a self-defense class a month prior, such as knocking his glasses off.
“I think the prayer was actually really powerful,” she said. “It felt like the Red Sea had opened and we walked through and the sea collapsed on the bad man.”
Dennis Long, who offered the prayer, also believes his words brought miracles.
“I definitely believe that Savannah was being watched over,” Long said. “I do believe the prayer made a difference.”
Long said he doesn’t make it a specific habit to pray over people’s homes like that but the two had gotten into a discussion of sharing their faiths and he felt inspired to pray with her.
And Fuchs said her son told of seeing a strange woman in the apartment during the attack.
“He said she had long, flowing hair,” said the mother. But the son had believed the woman to be evil until people later came to believe the woman was an angel.
“The reason he thought she was evil is she was in my house and he didn’t recognize her,” she said.
His story included the woman motioning him to stay upstairs, her checking on the mother while she was being beaten and then leaving through a door.
Fuchs believes Barber may have seen the angel too because at one point she saw him “shaking and scared looking, like a wind threw him up against a wall.”
She admits that the angel part of the story is difficult to comprehend.
“The police had to actually go look for this woman,” Fuchs said.
North Ogden police reports, obtained from Fuchs, corroborate much of the story Fuchs tells.
In the reports, officers document arriving on the scene at about 6:30 a.m. April 1 to hear a gunshot just after a man in Fuch’s apartment asked them who was knocking and of later finding his body on the staircase.
Police reports tell of Fuchs, whose face was covered in blood, opening the door and falling back, becoming unconscious before being awakened again by police.
“Savannah’s head and face was covered in blood,” reads the report written by North Ogden officer Dirk Quinney. “I asked Savannah ‘where is he’ speaking of the male who called us. She said ‘he just shot himself.’ “
Quinney then told about becoming aware of Fuchs’ young son being in the home.
“I called up to him and asked if he could make it downstairs,” Quinney wrote in his report. “He told me if he did, he would get all bloody.”
Fuchs said her son had to make his way past Barber’s dead body to get to police.
Fuchs also told of one of her ears that later had to be sewn back on and of injuries to her head caused by her attacker hitting her multiple times with his handgun.
She also told of the man trying to shoot her several times but failing because the gun jammed. Police reported that their investigation of bullets and casings found in the apartment appear to indicate that the gun jammed when it was fired.
Fuchs said she had, for a year previous to the attack, reported fearing the man to both police and the apartment landlord. She said he had been stalking her.
Two police reports obtained by the Standard-Examiner via a request to North Ogden police through Utah’s Government Records Access and Management Act document Fuchs’ complaints about Barber stalking her starting in January of 2013.
The first report, filed by officer Joseph Thomas, who no longer works for North Ogden police, was filed Jan. 12, 2013
The report documents Fuchs’ complaints of Barber looking in her windows, leaving gifts for her and her son and of her concerns about information he was posting on her work-related Facebook page.
“I explained to Todd if he continued to make unwanted contact with Savannah, she would be seeking harassment charges against him,” Thomas wrote in his report. “Todd said he understood and would no longer contact Savannah.”
But a previous report documents even more aggressive harassment from Barber as well as his trespassing on her property and being caught looking in her windows from between 15 minutes to an hour at times.
The report also details complaints about Barber contacting Fuchs at “weird” hours, leaving her gifts and recording voice mails to her.
Thomas wrote of meeting with Barber and telling him he could be cited for trespassing or even charged with stalking if he did not stop. The report also documented Thomas telling Fuchs she could get a protective order against Barber.
This second report was dated April 17, 2013. Fuchs said she moved into the apartment in September of 2013 and that the date on the report is incorrect. But a North Ogden Police administrative executive assistant said the April 17 report date was verified by a North Ogden police official.
Fuchs said she is planning to file a lawsuit against North Ogden police because she believes they could have followed better practices in working to keep her safe.
Her attorney, Robert B. Sykes, said the suit has not yet been filed. He outlined details of why he and Fuchs believe police showed errors in judgment in both their documented responses and lack of response toward Barber, who he described as “a highly unstable person.”
North Ogden Mayor Brent Taylor issued a statement Friday expressing sympathy for Fuchs, defending the police department and saying the city would not pay “a large cash settlement” demanded by Fuchs’ attorney.
“This was a terrible crime that occurred in our community and our hearts go out to the victims,” Taylor said. “We take this type of tragedy very personally and do everything we can to prevent it.
“Out of respect for her privacy and because she has filed a notice of claim, I will not discuss Ms. Fuchs’ case. However, I will say that many of the statements being made about the case and our officers’ actions contain inaccurate information or only select details, unfortunately resulting in an incomplete and inaccurate picture of what took place. I have personally reviewed the documents related to this case, and strongly believe that our officers responded professionally and in good faith based on the evidence available at the time, and based on the constitutional rights of all parties.”
The mayor said North Ogden City received a letter from Fuchs’ attorney “requesting either a large cash settlement or threatening the city with a lawsuit.”
“While we are sympathetic to the tragedy that occurred, we are not going to take money from the wallets of hard-working North Ogden taxpayers for what ultimately amounts to a terrible, but unpredictable crime committed by an evil person acting on his own,” Taylor said. “I want to reassure the citizens of North Ogden that we have excellent and dedicated officers who do incredible work to keep our city as safe as possible.”
Fuchs said Barber told her, while he was trying to kill her, he was being evicted by the landlord for Fuchs complaints about him.
“He was shaking, angry and said something like ‘You ruined my life.'”
During the nearly hour-long beating, she remembers him asking her where he was going to be able to go. She also reports he chastised her for having told the landlord that he had followed her and looked in her windows.
Fuchs said the ordeal started immediately after her alarm had gone off at 5:30 a.m. that day.
She said she was immediately aware of someone being in her apartment. That’s when he started to beat her, pull her hair and blame her for having no place to go.
Police reports indicated that police later found piles of Fuchs’ hair and blood in her bedroom and in the living room of her apartment as well as holes from gunshots in her apartment.
Fuchs said after her son was awakened, he remembers seeing a bullet being fired and going right past her head.
“They found a bullet right by my head,” she said.
And she said she felt led toward her own survival.
At first, she said recollections from a self-defense class went through her mind. She said she was able to knock her assailant’s glasses off at one point, probably hindering his ability to fire the gun accurately at her.
“Something kept saying ‘Do not fall asleep,’ ” she said, noting that she was critically injured and that police later told her that they didn’t think she would pull through when they first saw her.
But Fuchs did survive and now she said she is ready to tell her story. She’s working on writing a book about her experiences.
And she wants to focus on the miracles that came out of a bad situation.
The attack happened just before Passover and she said she found many reasons to celebrate during that season.
“It was the best Passover to be alive,” she said.
And there was another miracle, she said, when a worker at Dillard’s gave her mother a large donation for clothing when her mother went to purchase a new wardrobe for her.
An instructor at Paul Mitchell the School, Fuchs needed to be able to look her best when she returned to work but she was not able to face returning to her apartment just yet when the time came for her to go back to work.
While remaining nervous about how people will react to her now that they know her story, Fuchs said she hopes to inspire others, especially women, with her story of survival and the lessons she’s learned in the process.
“How can I make this a positive thing?” Fuchs asked. “There is so much beauty in the world. .. I really want people to realize that God is there.”
Fuchs said she wants to be a better person as a result of the “horrible nightmare.”
“I am going to carry on,” she said. “I am going to be the best mom I can be. I feel like I am cheating death.”
You may reach reporter JaNae Francis at 801-625-4228. Follow her on Twitter at JaNaeFrancisSE. Like her Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/SEJaNaeFrancis.