By Lisa Rosetta
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune
Even as a two-alarm auto shop fire raged in South Salt Lake early Monday, and fire crews scrambled to extinguish exploding gas tanks and tires, Steve Foote thought of his friend.
This e-mail was initiated by machine [10.148.8.4] at IP [10.148.8.4].
Dennis Steadman, a former United Fire Authority battalion chief, would never pull up in his truck again.
"When everything was going to hell, I felt a little bit better about the fact that Dennis was there, my friend was there, to make things a little bit better," the South Salt Lake fire chief said.
On Friday, Steadman called his wife, Holly. Then he drove west of Five Mile Pass and ended his life by carbon monoxide poisoning.
"He said he loved me more than I would understand in my life," Steadman's wife of six years said. " 'Take care of you and love each other' - his big message was to please forgive each other. He felt very lonely at the end of his life. He felt like the media massacred him."
Steadman, an exemplary paramedic and firefighter for 32 years, his colleagues say, went into hiding and became despondent after he was charged Feb. 18 with enticing a minor over the internet. Prosecutors say he sent online messages to an undercover agent posing as a 13-year-old girl.
Jeff Johnson, a UFA battalion chief and close friend of Steadman's, said when the 54-year-old� showed up at an arranged meeting spot with "the girl," he knew he was walking into a law enforcement trap. He was asking for help.
"In order to stop what he was doing, he felt like he needed to meet with the officers and get it out in the open and have it in," Johnson said. In response to the charges, Steadman "was as baffled as anybody as far as an explanation."
Johnson said Steadman's Internet chats, along with a recent shoplifting incident in which Steadman presented an old receipt for a $29 refund on a door knob, were out of character for the firefighter. It just didn't make sense.
"There was something else going on," he said. "I don't know if he had something neurological or something else. That just wasn't the man I knew."
Holly Steadman said her husband may have suffered from a debilitating disease other than multiple sclerosis, with which he lived for about 15 years.
"I've known for a while things weren't right," she said. "The [medical examiner] even basically agrees - probably some type of brain degeneration. He was losing memory."
The day the FBI came knocking and rummaged through their belongings, Steadman knew "he had really gone over the edge," his wife said.
Foote, who met Steadman the day he began with the fire service in 1979, is disturbed that Steadman will never get his day in court.
Defense attorney Greg Skordas said Steadman had a reason to be optimistic about his trial, which was slated for May 18.
"We had an absolutely defensible case and had we gone to trial, we would have an excellent shot at prevailing," he said.
The man Steadman's friends and family knew was different from the man whom Tooele County sheriff's Lt. Duke North found about 2:15 p.m. Sunday. North was shocked. His friend would not have taken his own life.
"That's not Dennis," North said. "That's not his personality. That's not his way of life. That's not him. Something happened."
Steadman had a likable personality, his close friends say. He was kind, funny, charismatic - a guy with no agendas. Off duty, he would pull over and help stranded motorists, or pull a few bucks out of his pocket for the roadside beggars.
Foote described Steadman as a gifted paramedic, and in later years, a talented battalion chief who could quickly organize resources and take command.
And he never looked down on the smaller fire agencies he assisted.
"Dennis showed up and just said, 'What do you need?' " Foote said.
Between 1990 and 1996, Steadman also worked as a public information officer, interacting with Salt Lake City's news media.
Steadman loved the fire service and the people with whom he worked, his colleagues say.
It saddens Foote that, after the charges, many of Steadman's friends abandoned him. Steadman's life, in its entirety, is "a pretty neat package when you see the whole thing," he said.
Dennis Steadman's funeral is Friday at 1 p.m. at the Gateway Community Church at 584 E. 12300 South in Draper. A viewing will be held an hour prior. A viewing also will be held Thursday from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Goff Mortuary at 8090 S. State St. in Midvale.
lrosetta@sltrib.com