LOGAN, Utah -- When the Turner family walked onto the Murdoch Hyundai car lot in Logan, they explained they needed a new car that could fit a wheelchair. The salesman asked a few questions.
“They finally broke down and let us know they had about 40 appointments next month in Salt Lake,” said Zach Saxton, new car manager at Murdoch Hyundai in Logan.
The Turners are not your average new car customer. Their 14-year-old daughter, Deserae, was found in a Smithfield canal in February. She had been shot in the head and left to die.
Deserae survived, but has lost control of the left side of her body and is blind in one eye. When the salesman realized who he was talking to, he went to his manager, Zach Saxton. Saxton called his boss, Ben Murdoch. Murdoch called the other general managers in the group and made a decision.
“Hey, lets let them pick out a car, we’re going to take it all the way down to $10,000, and then he said: Let’s get it down as low as we can, let’s get it down to $7,500,” Saxton said.
A brand new car for $7,500, a good deal that was about to get a whole lot better. The next day the Turners came back to sign the paperwork to finance the new car. Saxton says Ben Murdoch was waiting to deliver a message.
When their first payment was due, he would write them a check for $7,500--covering the entire cost of the car.
“To have a $100 a month payment on a vehicle on top of all these bills, it just didn’t make sense,” Saxton said.
A new car won’t fix the pain the Turners face, but it might make the road to recovery a little smoother as they shuttle back and forth to Salt Lake City for treatments.
