Savannah Fuchs: The Attack, North Ogden Lawsuit, and Where She Is Now

Savannah Fuchs is a Utah woman who survived a two-hour home-invasion attack by her neighbor on April 1, 2014, in North Ogden, later sued the city and its police for failing to protect her despite a year of complaints about the neighbor’s stalking, and lost the case in 2015 on governmental immunity grounds. She went on to co-author a book about the attack, earn a medical degree, and is now a family medicine resident at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Knoxville.¹

The April 2014 Attack

Fuchs woke around 5:30 a.m. on April 1, 2014, to find her 54-year-old neighbor, Todd Alan Barber, standing in her bedroom. He had entered carrying a handgun, bags, duct tape, and zip ties.² Fuchs later said she believed he intended to rape and kill both her and her six-year-old son.³

Barber fired multiple shots at her, but the gun jammed or missed. He pistol-whipped her in the head. She fought back, knocked off his glasses, and made it downstairs toward the front door before he dragged her back and continued the assault. By her account the ordeal lasted roughly two hours, and she lost consciousness at one point from blood loss.⁴

The attack ended when Barber himself called 911. Officers arrived around 6:30 a.m. and heard a gunshot through the door. Barber had killed himself on the staircase.⁴

Her Injuries

Fuchs suffered a traumatic brain injury, memory loss, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Her head wounds required more than 60 staples and over 50 stitches, and one of her ears had to be surgically reattached.²

Her son slept through most of the assault but woke near the end and saw a bullet pass near his mother’s head. He was not physically injured. When officers told him to come down and past Barber’s body, he hesitated and said that if he did, “he would get all bloody.”⁴

Who Todd Barber Was

Barber lived in the townhouse next door, sharing a wall with Fuchs. She said he was friendly at first but grew threatening over about a year. He looked into her windows at odd hours, pounded on her door, left voicemails, bought gifts for her and her son, sat outside her window for long stretches, and wrote Christian messages in chalk on her porch and car. Fuchs, who is Jewish, found the religious messages especially disturbing. Barber once propped a ladder against her townhouse to place a Christian fish symbol on her second-story window and scratched another onto her car.⁵

Fuchs did not know it at the time, but Barber had a felony weapons conviction in Georgia and had served nine years in prison for it.⁶ He was also using the Social Security number of a deceased woman.⁷ Fuchs’s landlord had told Barber he was being evicted as of April 1, 2014, the day of the attack, because of her complaints. During the assault, Barber told her, “You ruined my life.”⁴

What She Told Police Before the Attack

For roughly a year, Fuchs contacted the North Ogden Police Department about Barber. The number of contacts was later disputed: her attorney cited 15, Fuchs cited at least seven officer visits and six calls, and the department documented only three calls.⁵

Fuchs said officers would speak with Barber, then relay that he claimed to be “just trying to be a good neighbor” and had promised to leave her alone. She said officers repeatedly reassured her that Barber was not dangerous and that “everything would be all right.”⁸ Officers also told her Barber had no criminal record, which was untrue. One police report described the chalk messages as “nothing threatening, just odd.” An officer told her she could seek a protective order; she declined, saying she doubted it would help given how close the two lived.⁵ Police never arrested Barber.

The Lawsuit Against North Ogden

On February 3, 2015, Fuchs filed suit in Utah’s Second Judicial District Court against North Ogden City and several of its officers, alleging negligence, failure to protect, and violations of her state constitutional rights. Her attorney, Robert Sykes, sought a “seven-figure amount” for her injuries.²⁹

The complaint rested on the “special relationship” doctrine. Sykes argued that by repeatedly visiting Fuchs’s home, speaking with Barber, and reassuring her, the officers created a special relationship that obligated them to act reasonably to protect her. The suit also alleged that officers failed to discover Barber’s felony conviction or his use of a dead woman’s identity, told Fuchs he had no record, never arrested him despite conduct Sykes called stalking, and failed to write reports for all their visits.³⁶

North Ogden declined settlement talks. Mayor Brent Taylor said officers could only act on the evidence available at the time, and the department’s internal review concluded there had been no probable cause to arrest Barber before the attack.⁸

Why the Case Was Dismissed

In July 2015, Second District Judge Scott M. Hadley dismissed the case. He ruled that no special relationship existed between the officers and Fuchs that would create a legal duty to protect her from Barber. The officers’ interactions with Barber, he wrote, were “not ‘specific actions’ aimed at protecting the plaintiff, but instead, a response typical of law enforcement’s duty to keep the peace.”⁷ The judge added that even if a special relationship had been found, the officers were shielded by Utah’s Governmental Immunity Act.¹⁰

Sykes said he respected the ruling but disagreed with it. As of August 2015, he indicated Fuchs most likely would not appeal.⁷

Where Savannah Fuchs Is Now

In June 2016, Fuchs co-authored a book with Margaret Milan Wright titled Intervening Angel: My Inspirational Story of Survival, published by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. It recounts the stalking, the attack, and her recovery.¹¹

She later attended the University of South Carolina School of Medicine in Greenville and earned her medical degree. She is a third-year family medicine resident at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Medicine in Knoxville.¹

1
University of Tennessee Health Science Center. Family Medicine Residents
2
Salt Lake Tribune. North Ogden Woman Files Lawsuit Saying Police Should Have Done More to Protect Her
3
KUTV. Woman Who Survived Brutal Two-Hour Attack Sues North Ogden City
4
Standard-Examiner. Woman and Son Survive North Ogden Murder Attempt
5
Deseret News. North Ogden Woman Files Lawsuit Saying Police Should Have Done More to Protect Her
6
ABC4. Lawsuit Claims North Ogden Police Did Not Protect and Serve
7
Salt Lake Tribune. Judge Dismisses North Ogden Assault Victim’s Lawsuit Against Police
8
Fox 13 Salt Lake City. Victim of Assault Sues North Ogden Police, Claims They Did Not Do Enough to Protect Her
9
KUTV. Woman Who Survived Brutal Two-Hour Attack Sues North Ogden City
10
KUTV. Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Against Police, City by Woman Who Was Beaten by Neighbor
11
Google Books. Intervening Angel: My Inspirational Story of Survival