Victim’s Sacrifice in S.F. Shooting Recalled

Mortally wounded and horrified, John Scully tried one last time to help his wife as she frantically tried to call police from an office phone during a gunman’s rampage.

“He tried to give me directions, then he said, ‘I’m dying,’ and we said our goodbys,” a tearful Michelle Scully told the San Francisco Examiner in an interview published Sunday.

Less than a year after their wedding in Honolulu, the young couple watched Thursday as Gian Luigi Ferri began his assault at the Pettit & Martin law firm, where John Scully worked.

Michelle Scully had planned to study at the firm until John’s shift ended. She had settled in with some reference books in an empty 33rd-floor office when her 28-year-old husband burst in and yelled: “You’ve got to get out, they’ve heard shots!”

“I thought it was a false alarm or something,” Michelle said. “But we headed around the corner and saw the gunman.”

Terrified, they found another empty office and hoped to hide behind a file cabinet. But Ferri found them first.

“He came in and he shot us,” Michelle said.

Michelle, wounded in her right arm and chest, knew that John’s injuries were much worse. Two days after his death, Michelle knew how she had escaped a similar fate: John deliberately had shielded her from bullets.

On Saturday, with her arm bandaged and motionless after surgery, she recalled her husband.

“He was always just concerned about me at all times,” she told the Examiner.

“I’m not sure the shock has hit yet,” she added. “I haven’t gone back to our apartment yet. I thought he would be there with me in ICU. He’s not coming back. . . . I’m trying not to cry. He didn’t like me to cry.”