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Daughter of bystander killed amid gang violence in Kearns speaks

Posted at 9:26 PM, Sep 20, 2017
and last updated 2017-09-20 23:27:07-04

KEARNS, Utah -- For most of her life, Stefani Shepherd didn’t have a relationship with her father.

“He was in prison most of my life so I didn’t really know him,” Shepherd said.

She says her Dad, Lloyd Pace, battled drug addiction, which fueled crimes like armed robbery.

“He had a hard life but he finally started living good,” Shepherd said.

Three years ago, Stefani traveled back to Utah from South Dakota to re-build a relationship with her dad. She says he was out of prison and clean, working to build a new life and learning the craft as a plumber. She brought along her son to meet his grandfather for the first time.

“I’ve never seen my son so happy, so excited to meet his grandpa,” she recalled.

The late-in-life bond she was developing with her father came unraveled on Tuesday night. Lloyd Pace and his fiancé Tami Lynn Woodard were killed in a crash on 5400 South in Kearns. Investigators say the blue truck that crashed into their car was fleeing after firing shots at a house with known drug ties.

“We have teenagers in custody for counts of murder. That’s what we have,” said Lt. Brian Lohrke with Unified Police Department.

19 year olds Rosalio Alvarez and Argenis Daniel Ramirez, 24 year old Jose Luis Cirilo Munoz Lugo and a 17 year old who has not been identified are all in custody.

“If you want to attach a gang thing to it, I attach it to idiotic behavior,” Lohrke said.

The arrests are little solace for Stefani and her family.

“They took my dad away from me when he didn’t need to be,” she said.

There’s a GoFundMe account setup by some of the people who worked with Lloyd at Progressive Plumbing and Piping. Stefani says she approved them setting it up to help her family.

Lloyd’s niece told Fox 13 News a second account has also been set up at Mountain America Credit Union.