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Crime Team Nabs Its First Killer
The Salt Lake Tribune Types: Utah Published: 12/23/1998
Byline: BY GREG BURTON THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

Little Ian Wing 7 weeks old fell asleep for good on Feb. 23, 1996. Wrapped tightly in a blanket and finally unable to scream, the Clearfield infant died of suffocation, the Utah Medical Examiner would eventually rule, although the exact cause of death would be in doubt for a year. More curious, and unexplained for nearly three years, were the 29 rib fractures, the two broken legs and the cracked left arm. "It was a short, bleak life," says Lt. Mike King, an investigator for the Utah Attorney General who picked up the stalled, 2-year-old death investigation in March. The case eventually was added to the docket of the fledgling Utah Criminal Tracking and Analysis Project (UTAP), a crime-fighting team modeled on the FBI's Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (VICAP). Ian's father would eventually tell King that the child's screaming was a bother and he would squeeze the boy until he was silent. In seven weeks, he squeezed Ian to silence five times.

On Tuesday, Mark Wing, 34, pleaded guilty to second-degree felony manslaughter in the death of his infant son, ending a criminal mystery that had tripped over the father's persistent denials of any wrongdoing and his ex-wife's defense of her son's father. Wing, who faces up to 15 years in prison, will be sentenced on Feb. 2 in 2nd District Court. "Some may consider this a victory for the state, but I've been pretty sick all day," says King. "I keep reflecting that in a couple weeks this baby would be celebrating his third birthday. Instead, he's [in] a graveyard. I don't think there were any winners in this."

Wing's conviction is the first for UTAP and comes about a year after King and Provo Police Chief Greg Cooper, an ex-FBI profiler who worked at VICAP, organized the project. A clearinghouse rather than a task force, UTAP gathers experts in forensic medicine, psychiatry and crime-scene analysis to screen unsolved cases for local law enforcement. UTAP has no budget and will only go where invited. Two years after Ian's death, detectives in Clearfield appealed to the AG's child-abuse unit for assistance. When King joined the investigation, he enlisted UTAP. "It's really just a resource for local jurisdictions," says Cooper, who along with King, the Utah Medical Examiner's Office and other UTAP experts, is assisting several rural Utah sheriffs with their unsolved homicides. "In a way, we're just there to brainstorm solutions."

The first thing King completed for Clearfield was a profile of Mark Wing. The mental analysis was bizarre and enlightening. What King allegedly discovered was a history of drugs and animal cruelty, he says, and a pattern of violence to his former wives. "But the thing that really pushed me over the edge and targeted him as a suspect was he had a fixation on two children being the perfect size of a family," King says. "It is something he often talked about." Ian's mother, Cara Wing, already had two children when she married Mark. Several months after they got married, she became pregnant, but Mark Wing forced her to have an abortion, investigators allege, and he got a vasectomy. It was too late Cara was pregnant again, this time with Ian. Other factors may have led to Ian's death. His mother was working two jobs to support the five-member family. Mark Wing was unemployed and spent his days caring for Ian and his two siblings.

On the night Ian died, Mark Wing squeezed his baby, placed it in its crib, and then fell asleep. He discovered the dead infant at 8:30 a.m. the next morning. At 10 a.m., he called police. "Our investigators worked very hard," says Clearfield Police Chief Morton Sparks. "When they see a child that's thought to be abused, and possibly killed from the abuse, they fret over it. Anytime you have something like this, people are left wondering grandparents, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters. At least now they can start the healing process."
© Copyright 1990-2000, The Salt Lake Tribune

Should Women Fight Off Rapists?
New Information May Help Victims Defeat Sexual Assailants
Oct. 27, 1999
By Ruth Papazian

APBnews.com's "Unsolved" offers online tools to study the evidence in these cases. It also provides a way for users -- among the public and police -- to unveil hidden patterns and clues that may be present in the data, develop theories and discuss the killings.

Brainstorming Cops Unite to Solve Old Crimes
Salt Lake Tribune Types: Utah Published: 06/22/1998
Byline: BY MIKE CARTER THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Two weeks ago at a Woods Cross motel, a group of mostly rural investigators from Utah and three neighboring states sat down to talk about old murders. Each of the 20 or so law officers sifted through the grisly circumstances of the unsolved slayings, 13 in all, involving the dumped bodies of women. The grim litany covering cases in Utah, Nevada, Wyoming and Idaho went on for nearly two days as a group of Utah experts listened intently. The details of each case were added to a butcher-paper chart on the wall. In the end, the cluttered chart was 20 feet long and contained two revelations. The first was confirmation of a long-held suspicion that at least one serial killer -- and more likely two -- had murdered most of the women. At least one suspect was identified. The second, less sensational but to the participants perhaps as significant, was the surprising efficacy of the fledgling Utah Criminal Tracking and Analysis Project, which hosted the meeting. ``I came out of that meeting feeling upbeat about this case for the first time in eight years,'' said Millard County Sheriff's Sgt. John Kimball. Kimball has been haunted by the discovery in March 1990 of the decomposed nude body of a woman found along a desolate stretch of Interstate 15. The woman, who has never been identified, had been shot and her body seemingly posed in a sexually suggestive manner.

The UTAP conference not only reinforced a long-held belief the crime was the work of a serial killer, but underscored the likelihood that the same killer dumped and posed the bodies of women found along Interstate 70 in neighboring Juab County in March 1991 and along a rural road outside St. George a month later. Moreover, the conference gave Kimball something he hadn't had before: a good suspect. ``I can't say enough about this concept,'' Kimball said. UTAP, brainchild of Provo Police Chief Greg Cooper and Utah attorney general's investigator Mike King, is rapidly being acknowledged as a unique tool in law enforcement circles both in and out of Utah. It is also something of a curiosity, a hybrid. In the turf-conscious world of law enforcement, task forces elicit groans from any detective who has had to navigate those ego-charged and bureaucratic waters. But UTAP isn't just a task force. It is a smorgasbord of expertise unavailable in any one place outside of the FBI laboratory in Quantico, Va.

Indeed, the project is closely modeled after the FBI's Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, or VICAP, where Cooper worked for five years and where he supervised its famed Investigative Support Unit. The unit's criminal profilers have been celebrated in the movie ``Silence of the Lambs'' and a variety of television and movie knockoffs since. Launched just seven months ago with the blessing of virtually every law enforcement agency in the state, UTAP has brought together a committee of diverse talents -- from forensic psychiatrists to death-scene investigators -- to help with those cases that keep detectives awake at night. ``The idea was to make this available to anybody who wanted the help,'' said Cooper. ``The idea was to solve crimes, not take credit for solving crimes.'' And that, perhaps more than anything else, is what makes the project unique. While it has structure, it has no agenda and no budget.

While Cooper and King coordinate its board of experts and meetings, they have no legal jurisdiction. UTAP can only go where it's invited. ``We have leaders, but no authority,'' said King. ``The whole idea here is to facilitate cooperation and communication between agencies. Rather than fostering reliance on outside agencies, we think [UTAP] gives us a little independence.'' ``This is a pretty laid-back operation,'' added Rudi Riet, a UTAP expert and chief investigator for the Utah Medical Examiner's Office. ``Nobody should be intimidated.'' By contrast, most task forces have a lead agency and all of the accompanying egos, politics and petty jurisdictional squabbles. ``That's what I like about this concept, it's that the jurisdictional lines aren't there,'' said Millard County's Kimball. ``A lot of time there's friction between the rural county agencies and the Wasatch Front. That's missing here.'' Cooper and King say that, while UTAP emulates VICAP, it was intentionally set up to avoid the FBI's notorious here-we-are-to-save-the-day reputation among other agencies. It has trained 40 law officers from throughout the state to act as liaisons between local police agencies and the project. They are usually the first contact for a detective and help screen cases and guide investigators through the process.

Like VICAP, a case detective must fill out a detailed questionnaire about the case, which is then sent along to King and Cooper. If it's accepted -- so far none have been rejected -- a committee of experts will be chosen and each given a copy of the entire case file. ``We'll go over it for a couple of weeks before we meet with the detective,'' Cooper said. Those meetings are fairly formal -- the investigator presents his case to the panel in a meeting that often lasts four hours or more. ``The officers don't always think they've had a great afternoon,'' Cooper said. ``It's pretty comprehensive.'' The crime scene is analyzed, evidence is examined and the case is profiled by Cooper, who is trained to discern an offender's personality traits and motivations from a crime scene. "Sometimes it's simply telling them they're doing all they can,'' said Riet. ``Sometimes we'll see something they haven't done. Sometimes, in some of these old cases, there's new technology that might be of use.''

King said no detective has ever walked out of the meetings without some new avenue of inquiry, evidence or a tack for interviewing a suspect who hasn't cracked. The project has reviewed some 20 cases in the past seven months, including the 13 regional murders. Cooper said they are almost all ``old and cold'' murders or what he calls ``equivocal deaths'' -- when the manner of passing is questionable. None of the cases has been solved -- yet. Cooper and King said there are at least two unsolved rural Utah homicides where arrests are imminent as a direct result of new leads and evidence plumbed by UTAP. Kimball, who had been a virtual one-man task force traveling the West trying to catch his serial killer, is optimistic for the first time in nearly a decade. ``I couldn't do any more myself,'' he said. ``I'd looked at all the crime-scene photos I could stand. I wasn't above asking for help, and I got it.''
© Copyright 1990-2000, The Salt Lake Tribune

Predator/Serial Rapist Training Recap
April 15, 1999
by Patti Donohoo
Criminal Justice Student
Weber State University, Ogden, Utah

On April 15, 1999 the Utah Criminal Tracking and Analysis Project (UTAP) presented a seminar on Predator/Serial Rapist Training at the Fred House Academy in Draper, Utah. The training was attended by more than 150 law enforcement officers and personnel from throughout Utah.

UTAP was formed by the Strategic Planning Committee for Utah Law Enforcement a year and a half ago to assist law enforcement agencies in solving cases. The goal of the Predator/Serial Rapist Training was to attempt to understand why rape occurs, discuss prevention strategies, and learn how a victim and perpetrator think and feel about the crime. The training focused on the April 10, 1997 rape of a real estate broker in Riverton, Utah. The perpetrator had been released one month earlier from the Utah State Prison after serving time for burglary

The training covered profiling and victimology, criminal history of the perpetrator, case review by the detective, prosecutor and defense attorney and interviews with the victim and perpetrator.

Chief of Staff, Mike King of the Attorney General’s Office, began the seminar by outlining the basic ideas and tools necessary for criminal profiling. The first step in solving a crime is understanding who the victim is and why they are a victim; victimology is the key to crime analysis.

Chief King discussed the correlations between the perpetrator and statistical facts that criminal profiling provides. The complete background and criminal history of the perpetrator were reviewed to help establish a basic understanding of this rapist and his motives which led to the sexual assault of at least 5 women. Four of his five victims were real estate brokers and one was an automobile salesperson. He preselected three victims by looking through real estate magazines with glamour photographs and the other two women were victims of opportunity

The perpetrator profiled his victims based upon photographs, attitudes, and flirtatiousness. He said he "liked women on the wild side" and felt his victims fit this description. He later denied this and said that his victims had to be women and vulnerable (someone he could handle). He believed he had not threatened or forced his victims and that four out of the five women enjoyed having sex with him. These insights established a good foundation for the following presentations and reemphasized the importance of criminal profiling and victimology.

Detective Cory Snodgrass of the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office, the lead investigator, led the next segment of the training. He provided a detailed description of the

perpetrator's actions during his one month release from prison. The events that precipitated the rape clearly evidenced his intent to commit this crime. Detective Snodgrass discussed the victim's description of the rape which set the stage for the prosecutor and defense attorney.

Marsha Atkin from the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office and Robert Steele of the Salt Lake Public Defenders Association discussed the perpetrator and victim. The passion, dedication, and genuine care exhibited by Ms. Atkin for the victim was exceptional. Many of her decisions throughout the trial were influenced by her desire to protect the victim. Mr. Steele provided excellent representation for the perpetrator, but was restricted in discussing many details of the case due to attorney/client privilege. He focused his presentation on the fundamental duties of a defense attorney and the delicate steps involved in providing the best defense. Both attorneys exhibited a loyalty and belief in their clients that promulgated the feeling that justice had been served in the adjudication of this matter.

On April 10, 1997, the victim's life was changed forever by the brutal act of a stranger. Putting aside her own fear and pain, the victim put forth a valiant effort to help educate law enforcement by telling her side of the story and allowing us to question her. It has been almost two years since her rape and the trauma of this violent act was painfully obvious. The fear, anger, hate and grief she has conquered is inconceivable, but her determination to move on and see the perpetrator convicted was truly admirable. When discussing the trial, the one criticism the victim had was directed at the criminal justice system. She felt the system had victimized her over and over again due to the length of time it took to conclude this case. At the conclusion of her interview, the victim took the opportunity to publicly acknowledge her deep appreciation and respect to everyone who had helped her throughout this difficult time.

On December 11, 1998, the perpetrator was convicted of aggravated rape and recommitted to the Utah State Prison. He consented to an interview and was brought over from the prison. Throughout the presentation the perpetrator appeared to enjoy the attention he was receiving from the audience and kept control of the situation by manipulating the questioning. He repeatedly expressed his contempt and hatred for everyone, especially law enforcement and implied he would have tried to kill one of them if he had not been locked up. The perpetrator demonstrated a complete lack of remorse or sense of wrongdoing towards the victim. He stated that what hurt him the worst is what he did to his parents, not what he did to his victims. Up until six months ago, the perpetrator believed he was not a rapist. Today he admits to being a rapist and credits Chief King and the UTAP program with helping him to change his perception of this crime.

A critique was held at the conclusion of the training to evaluate the information gained. Several officers in the audience were friends of the perpetrator throughout his life and none of them felt he had changed. In the last twenty-eight years of his life, the perpetrator spent over twenty-five years in prison. The rippling effect caused by his life of crime and hatred will have detrimental effects on many people for the rest of their lives.

The Predator/Serial Rapist Training provided a well-rounded and thorough approach to examining a rape case. It afforded everyone the opportunity to gain valuable insight and information for future use.

On a personal note, I am a criminal justice major at Weber State University and was the only person not directly involved in law enforcement allowed to attend this training. The knowledge I have gained on how our criminal justice system works and the role each person plays in resolving the crime of rape was fascinating and extensive. UTAP's efforts to educate law enforcement about serial rapists, profiling and victimology was impressive. My sincere thanks to Chief’s Mike King and Greg Cooper for supporting me in the furtherance of my education in the criminal justice system.

Clearfield Man Gets 1 to 15 Years for Son's Death
The Salt Lake Tribune Section: Utah Published:02/03/1999
Byline: BY GREG BURTON THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

FARMINGTON -- A Clearfield man was sentenced to 1 to 15 years in prison for manslaughter Tuesday, putting to rest a horrific child-abuse homicide that for three years had confounded investigators, prosecutors and family members. Later blaming frustrations at home and work, Mark Wing squeezed his crying infant into silence at least five times over Ian Wing's seven-week life, prosecutors said. Ian Wing eventually died in his crib on Feb. 23, 1996. An autopsy showed the infant had suffocated, a condition likely brought on by 29 rib fractures. Ian also suffered two broken legs and a cracked left arm. "This helpless child never had a chance," said Assistant Atty. Gen. Robert Parrish. "There's absolutely nothing a 7-week-old child can do to provoke [this kind of a] violent attack." Wing stood silent as 2nd District Judge Jon M. Memmott issued a quick, unemotional decision inside the Farmington courtroom. "I can't read this as a single incident where somebody lost control," the judge said. While not denying Wing's complicity in the death, defense attorney Troy Rawlings attempted to mitigate the punishment by outlining Wing's behavior since the crime. Wing has a steady job, is enrolled in college, has remarried -- for the fourth time -- and is supervising two stepchildren with no apparent ill effect. "He snapped, he exploded," Rawlings conceded. "[But] this is an aberration. Something Mr. Wing did that will probably not happen again. [And] he has immense inner guilt, turmoil . . . of the consequences of losing his son." Rawlings asked for a short jail sentence and work release. Instead, Memmott applied the maximum penalty. Wing's fourth wife, who is not Ian's mother, also appealed for a reduced sentence. "He's never raised a hand to me or my children," she told the judge through sobs. "He is a good father. I've never seen him act in a violent manner." For more than two years, the 34-year-old denied playing a hand in Ian's death. The case was stalled when Clearfield investigators appealed to state child-abuse experts. That appeal eventually landed with Lt. Mike King, an investigator at the Attorney General's Office, who brought together experts from the fledgling Utah Criminal Tracking and Analysis Project UTAP) to assist. Modeled on the FBI's Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, UTAP is assisting local investigators on nearly 20 cases, providing expertise in medicine, crime-scene analysis and forensic psychology. Wing's conviction is UTAP's first courtroom success. King praised Clearfield Police Chief Morton Sparks for not only requesting assistance from UTAP, but also for freeing his investigators to answer questions. When King began reviewing the evidence, he drafted a disturbing profile of Wing and a history that allegedly included drugs, spousal abuse and animal cruelty as well as a fixation on the perfect family size. That profile was later used to elicit Wing's confession and the subsequent plea bargain that resulted in Wing's guilty plea last December to the charge of manslaughter. "Nobody can say what it's like to lie in a crib . . . waiting for someone to hold you, swaddle you . . . and then have your caretaker squeeze your chest as hard as he could," Parrish said. "For whatever reason, he didn't want this baby."
© Copyright 1990-2000, The Salt Lake Tribune.

Clearfield man: I killed my son
Wednesday, December 23, 1998
Prosecutors: Pressures of college and raising kids drove him to act
By GEOFFREY FATTAH Standard-Examiner Davis Bureau

FARMINGTON -- The pressure of raising his children and going to college while his wife held down several jobs was what drove a 34-year-old Clearfield man to kill his infant son two years ago, prosecutors say. Mark Wing plead guilty Tuesday in 2nd District Court to one count of manslaughter, a second-degree felony for the 1996 death of the 8-month-old boy. Prosecutors claimed Wing repeatedly squeezed the infant over a five-week period to stop him from crying, breaking the baby's bones.

Wing confessed to police that on Feb. 23 of 1996, he squeezed the infant and placed the baby in its crib. It wasn't until the next morning that Wing noticed the baby had died An autopsy revealed that Ian Wing's ribs were broken in 29 different places, along with fractures in his wrist and both legs from forceful turning. Deputy Attorney General Rob Parrish, who is part of a special task force on prosecuting child abuse cases, said because a baby's bones are mostly cartilage at that age and very flexible, Wing had to exert a lot of force to cause the fractures. "Mark Wing knew very well what he was doing," Parrish said. In what has been called one of the most difficult child abuse cases to prove, prosecutors said initially the state medical examiner's office and Clearfield Po lice could not gather enough evidence to charge Wing.

Parrish said Wing and his wife continually denied any wrong-doing. The autopsy revealed that some of the baby's bones had begun to heal but no direct link could be made that the injuries were the cause of the baby's death.. With no medical evidence and no witnesses to testify, Clearfield detectives were at a loss. But a team the team of investigators from the Attorney Genera's Office built a case which lead to Wing's confession. "Time has opened up some things for us," said investigator Mike King. Initially prosecutors were seeking a murder charge, but in an agreement Wing plead guilty to manslaughter.

Parrish said the circumstances surrounding the case show that Wing was feeling stress from all aspects of his life. "He was under a lot of pressure," Parrish said.

Wing allegedly told authorities that he had asked his wife to get an abortion because he did not know if they could handle another child, Parrish said, but Wing has maintained that once the child was born he came to accept the baby. Parrish said the couple was investigated by the Division of Child and Family Services for allegedly mistreating two other children before the baby's death. Wing is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 2. He faces a maximum penalty of up to 15 years in prison.

Great Basin Murders
apbnews.com Staff
At least nine dead. Last body found: Aug. 15, 1997

THE HOMICIDES

Authorities in Utah, Wyoming, Nevada and Idaho are investigating the deaths of at least nine women as serial crimes, according to Lt. Mike King of the Utah attorney general's office. King and Provo Police Department Chief Greg Cooper, a former FBI profiling expert, are co-coordinators of Utah Criminal Tracking Analysis Project (UTAP), a project that brings together separate agencies investigating these cases.

The majority of the women were killed within the last 10 years, however one case dates to 1983. Investigators believe there are at least two killers responsible.

Some investigators involved believed that the same person was responsible for killing three of the victims between 1990 and 1993. These slayings occurred in Millard and Juab counties in Utah, and in Elko, Nev. There was also a killing in St. George, Utah, in 1991 that was thought to also be linked to this sub-cluster. However, in March 1999 police arrested the husband of the Juab County victim and charged him with her murder. It's unknown how this links to the other cases, according to authorities.

VICTIMS At least four of the victims have still not been identified. All of the victims were women. Some were hitchhikers, prostitutes or women who frequented truck stops. However, at least one victim was described by police as "an all-American girl."

SUSPECTS(S)/PERSON(S) OF INTEREST According to information from a report released by UTAP, there is the suspicion that one offender may be familiar with the Casper, Wyo., area, where one of the bodies was found. This victim was thought to have been held for eight days before being slain, police said.

In February 1999 the Florida Department of Law Enforcement contacted the Juab County Sheriff's Office in response to a 1991 Jane Doe that Juab County had entered into the National Crime Information Commission computer network. Florida authorities had a missing person they thought might be a match. After some investigation the woman was identified as Barbara Kaye Williams. On March 3, authorities subsequently traveled to Florida and charged her husband, Howell Williams, with her murder.

M.O. A number of the victims were found nude. At least eight of the women were found off highways or interstates.

Some of the bodies appeared to be posed or displayed by the killer(s). Several were sexually abused and killed by multiple gunshots from a small-caliber weapon.

One victim, found off Interstate 15 in 1990 in Millard County, Utah, was found naked, posed on her back, arms out to her side (palms turned upward) in the shape of a cross. Her legs were spread slightly apart and her hair, a French braid, carefully laid out to the side, an investigator said.

According to Millard County Sgt. John Kimball, Williams' body, found in neighboring Juab County off I-15 in 1991, and a body found in Elko, Nev., in 1993 near an offramp on Interstate 80 were posed in an almost identical manner. A woman found slain in St. George, Utah, in 1991 may also be related to these three cases. That victim was found partially undressed, east of I-15. Kimball said it appeared as if the killer was interrupted.

The Millard County victim was shot four times in the head and one time in the neck. The victim in Juab County was shot eight times in the head. The victim in St. George was shot six times in the head.

The body of one of the victims showed signs of "extreme sexual activity." She was found in a river in Casper, Wyo., with six deep stab wounds to her chest. None of the stab wounds hit her ribs, which, according to the case review press release, "possibly indicated the suspect had medical training." Five of the wounds were patterned in the shape of fingers on a hand.

EVIDENCE Casings or bullets were found at three sites where bodies were discovered.

STATUS OF CASE Under the auspices of UTAP, personnel from local law enforcement agencies as well as personnel from the state hospital, the medical examiner's office and the state attorney general's office meet on a regular basis to review the cases, develop leads and exchange information.

A South Ogden man has been appointed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to serve on one of its national advisory boards.

Mike King, a former police officer now chief of staff at the Utah Attorney General's Office, will sit on the National Advisory Board of the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, or ViCAP.

The nine-member panel establishes procedures and protocols for information-sharing between local law enforcement agencies and the federal government in the investigation of violent and serial crimes, according to a press release from Attorney General Jan Graham announcing King's appointment.

King, a 20-year police veteran, currently oversees one of Graham's two investigations units and specifically focuses on crime prevention initiatives, victims' services, special investigations, and law enforcement projects.

King is a former police officer with several Weber County police forces, and was chief investigator with the Weber County Attorney's Office at the time of his hiring by the attorney general's office five years ago.

The ViCAP appointment was largely due to King's involvement as the Statewide Coordinator of the Utah Criminal Tracking and Analysis Project, an organization which provides a diverse committee of experts to assist local police statewide in analyzing and profiling difficult cases.

ViCAP is a nationwide data information center designed to collect and analyze information on crimes of violence.

Utah Panel is patterned after FBI Program... Task Force Yields new clues in Old Murders
Deseret News Archives,, Monday, June 22, 1998
By Mike Carter, Associated Press writer

Two weeks ago at a Woods Cross motel, a group of mostly rural investigators from Utah and three neighboring states sat down to talk about old murders.

Each of the 20 or so lawmen sifted through the grisly circumstances of the unsolved slayings, 13 in all, involving the dumped bodies of women. The grim litany covering cases in Utah, Nevada, Wyoming and Idaho went on for nearly two days as a group of Utah experts listened intently.
The details of each case were added to a butcher-paper chart on the wall. In the end, the cluttered chart was 20 feet long and contained two revelations.

The first was confirmation of a long-held suspicion that at least one serial killer - and more likely two - had murdered most of the women. At least one suspect was identified.

The second, less sensational but to the participants perhaps as significant, was the surprising efficacy of the fledgling Utah Criminal Tracking and Analysis Project, which hosted the meeting. "I came out of that meeting feeling upbeat about this case for the first time in eight years," said Millard County Sheriff's Sgt. John Kimball. Kimball has been haunted by the discovery in March 1990 of the decomposed and nude body of a woman found along a desolate stretch of Interstate 15. The woman, who has never been identified, had been shot and her body seemingly posed in a sexually suggestive manner.

The UTAP conference not only reinforced a long-held belief the crime was the work of a serial killer but underscored the likelihood that the same killer dumped and posed the bodies of women found along Interstate 70 in neighboring Juab County in March 1991 and along a rural road outside St. George a month later. Moreover, the conference gave Kimball something he hadn't had before: a good suspect. "I can't say enough about this concept," Kimball said.

UTAP, brainchild of Provo Police Chief Greg Cooper and Utah attorney general's investigator Mike King, is rapidly being acknowledged as a unique tool in law enforcement circles both in and out of Utah. It is also something of a curiosity, a hybrid. In the turf-conscious world of law enforcement, task forces elicit groans from any detective who has had to navigate those ego-charged and bureaucratic waters. But UTAP isn't just a task force. It is a smorgasbord of expertise unavailable in any one place outside of the FBI laboratory in Quantico, Va.

Indeed, the project is closely modeled after the FBI's Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, or VICAP, where Cooper worked for five years and where he supervised its famed Investigative Support Unit. The unit's criminal profilers have been celebrated in the movie "Silence of the Lambs" and a variety of television and movie knockoffs since.

Launched just seven months ago with the blessing of virtually every law enforcement agency in the state, UTAP has brought together a committee of diverse talents - from forensic psychiatrists to death-scene investigators - to help with those cases that keep detectives awake at night.
"The idea was to make this available to anybody who wanted the help," said Cooper. "The idea was to solve crimes, not take credit for solving crimes."

And that, perhaps more than anything else, is what makes the project unique. While it has structure, it has no agenda and no budget. While Cooper and King coordinate its board of experts and meetings, they have no legal jurisdiction. UTAP can only go where it's invited.
"We have leaders but no authority," said King. "The whole idea here is to facilitate cooperation and communication between agencies. Rather than fostering reliance on outside agencies, we think (UTAP) gives us a little independence."
"This is a pretty laid-back operation," added Rudi Riet, a UTAP expert and chief investigator for the Utah Medical Examiner's Office. "Nobody should be intimidated."

By contrast, most task forces have a lead agency and all of the accompanying egos, politics and petty jurisdictional squabbles.
"That's what I like about this concept, it's that the jurisdictional lines aren't there," said Millard County's Kimball. "A lot of time there's friction between the rural county agencies and the Wasatch Front. That's missing here."
Cooper and King say that, while UTAP emulates VICAP, it was intentionally set up to avoid the FBI's notorious here-we-are-to-save-the-day reputation among other agencies.

It has trained 40 lawmen from throughout the state to act as liaisons between local police agencies and the project. They are usually the first contact for a detective and help screen cases and guide investigators through the process. Like VICAP, a case detective must fill out a detailed questionnaire about the case, which is then sent to King and Cooper. If it's accepted - so far none has been rejected - a committee of experts will be chosen and each given a copy of the entire case file. "We'll go over it for a couple of weeks before we meet with the detective," Cooper said. Those meetings are fairly formal - the investigator presents his case to the panel in a meeting that often lasts four hours or more. "The officers don't always think they've had a great afternoon," Cooper said. "It's pretty comprehensive." The crime scene is analyzed, evidence is examined and the case is profiled by Cooper, who is trained to discern an offender's personality traits and motivations from a crime scene. "Sometimes it's simply telling them they're doing all they can," said Riet. "Sometimes we'll see something they haven't done. Sometimes, in some of these old cases, there's new technology that might be of use."

King said no detective has ever walked out of the meetings without some new avenue of inquiry, evidence or a tack for interviewing a suspect who hasn't cracked. The project has reviewed some 20 cases in the past seven months, including the 13 regional murders. Cooper said they are almost all "old and cold" murders or what he calls "equivocal deaths" - when the manner of passing is questionable.

None of the cases has been solved - yet. Cooper and King said there are at least two unsolved rural Utah homicides where arrests are imminent as a direct result of new leads and evidence plumbed by UTAP. Kimball, who had been a virtual one-man task force traveling the West trying to catch his serial killer, is optimistic for the first time in nearly a decade. "I couldn't do any more myself," he said. "I'd looked at all the crime-scene photos I could stand. I wasn't above asking for help, and I got it."
© 1999 Deseret News Publishing Co.

Law Agencies Pool Their Efforts
Deseret News Archives, Sunday, November 30, 1997
By Jennifer Dobner, Staff Writer

Utah's law-enforcement agencies are formalizing an old standard of police procedure - that of helping each other solve crimes. Officials from the Utah Attorney General's Office recently announced the creation of UTAP, the Utah criminal Tracking and Analysis Project. (Agencies are not capitalizing "criminal" as part of the UTAP name because of their low regard for criminals.)

The project is designed to pool resources and expertise from across the state to assist local sheriff or police departments. Members of the UTAP team will provide coordinated case assessment, criminal behavioral analysis and criminal profiling. And it will help develop strategies for case investigations and prosecution, project chairman and Provo Police Chief Gregory Cooper said. And whether the crime is a string of burglaries or a homicide, having those resources just a phone call away could be a big help to someone like Wayne County Sheriff Don Torgerson.

Torgerson's small department of four deputies covers a 2,500-square-mile patch of southern Utah where the population varies between 2,300 and 7,000 people depending upon the season.

"We don't have the manpower or the budget to take on major crimes," said Torgerson. "But with UTAP we will get some help. I think this will be a great benefit to departments in rural communities." Torgerson's already got a case in mind for the UTAP team. A suspicious drowning last summer has left officers pondering circumstantial evidence for months. No arrests have been made.

With UTAP's help, Torgerson said he hopes his staff will come up with new leads or at least a new way of looking at the evidence.
"I think in some cases (UTAP's help) will make the difference between solving and not solving a crime," he said. UTAP is patterned loosely after an FBI-run crime and behavioral science unit in Quantico, Va., said Lt. Mike King of the Utah Attorney General's Office. There the best of the best - from detectives to medical experts and attorneys - come together to review every aspect of case in order to get it solved and successfully prosecuted.

The FBI does offer that help to local law-enforcement agencies across the country, King said. But the FBI is selective about the cases it reviews and even then, getting help can take a long time. "We figured that locally, we should be able to put together the same resources here in Utah, so why weren't we doing it?" said King, adding that he believes the UTAP program to be the first of its kind in the nation.

To get the program in place, some 40 law-enforcement officers from across the state began a three-day training session at the Police Officer Standards and Training facility Monday. Every region of Utah is participating in the program, King said. Both the Salt Lake City Police Department and the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office will participate in the program. Each of the 40 officers will serve as a contact person for his region of the state, King said. Cooper, who is a former FBI agent, is leading the training.

Most of the cost of UTAP will be borne by federal grant money. The rest will be donated time from officers with some costs reimbursed by the agency requesting assistance, King said.

Officers Given Insight into Criminal Minds
METRO & NEW MEXICO
Rapist offers Hints on Fighting Crime
Jeff Jones Journal Staff Writer
12/11/1999, Albuquerque Journal - (Copyright 1999)

Having a dog can help. So can living in a well-lighted area and leaving clues outside a home that show a man lives there, such as a muddy pair of boots.

Set up a bigger perimeter during searches, and question everyone coming in or out of the area. Release enough details about the crimes so people who may know the rapist will realize it.

These are a few of the tips an expert on serial rapes told dozens of law officers who gathered Friday morning at an Albuquerque hotel.

This guest speaker came to the New Mexico Law Enforcement Conference under heavy guard and wearing white Utah prison pants, a white prison shirt and shackles around his legs and arms. He’s an expert because he is a convicted rapist one who’s preyed on more than 80 victims in 11 western states. He’ll be spending the next several decades, and quite possibly the rest of his life, in prison.

The rapist is part of a unique Utah law enforcement training program that allows police to get ideas on crime fighting from the criminals themselves.

His name isn’t being used at the request of a program organizer, who said his life could be in danger if other prisoners identify him. He told the large crowd at the Albuquerque Marriott that he’s now talking about his crimes to prevent other rapes.

"I know about crime. I know about rape," he said. "I hope this makes a difference."

Some of the things the rapist said were "repugnant," said Bernalillo County Sheriff Joe Bowdich. But he said he and other law officers agreed it was "something we can learn from."

"There is a point where you might want to jump up and choke him," Bowdich said, "but we can’t do that."

The rapist, who worked as a trucker, said he became hooked on drugs and started doing burglaries to support his habit. He later began raping women in the homes he broke into. He went to apartment complexes where he thought single women might live, and he said the cars parked outside homes told him if a potential victim lived there.

They usually drive "a smaller," he said. And "they always had cute little things hanging from the mirror."

He said he told his victims he was a police officer or firefighter to throw investigators off his trail. He raped on victim, allowed her to call police and raped another victim nearby while police were investigating the first crime.

"It got to be more of a game," he said. "And I was more thrilled with the game than the crime."

The rapist said he was a voyeur - someone who gets sexual gratification from seeing sex acts - before he became a rapist, and other rapists begin the same way.

He also said the best rehabilitation he’s ever had came when one of his victims described the crime at a parole hearing, and he tried to hold back tears as he spoke about it.

"It’s difficult for me to look back upon who I was and how many people I hurt," he said. "I can’t fix rape. I can’t go back and take it away. This is not easy to do. This is embarrassing, humiliating. But who’s gonna do it? To better educate you people (and) society that’s why I do this."

Last summer, an aspiring actress about to graduate from the University of Utah was murdered in her apartment during a home-invasion robbery. Two years ago, a gap-toothed 10-year-old Salt Lake City girl was stabbed to death in broad daylight on her front porch.

And on a winter night in 1996, a Pizza Hut delivery driver was found dead on a West Valley City roadside, apparently run over by her own pickup.

In the years following the slayings of Amy Quinton, Anna Palmer and Lisa Redmond, investigators have mined every detail of the murders but have been unable to catch the killers. Now, police have new hope -- courtesy of the information superhighway -- that these cases might someday be solved.

A new Web site will allow tipsters who have information on these unsolved killings -- and the dozens of others statewide -- to send e-mail to lead investigators. Police hope the information will generate new leads and help them catch murderers. Tipsters can remain anonymous.

The site is www.UTAP.org and is maintained by the Utah criminal Tracking and Analysis Project. Formed in 1997, the mission of UTAP is to facilitate cooperation between law enforcement agencies in major criminal cases, including unsolved homicides, missing persons and unidentified bodies. "There really hasn't been one single source for law enforcement agencies to get information on unidentified bodies and unsolved homicides," said Mike King of the Utah Attorney General's Office. "With the Internet, we can also use the public more and gather information that way."

UTAP also provides investigators with expertise in medicine, crime-scene analysis and forensic psychology by including experts as members. The group -- made up of police and such experts in crime-solving -- also interviews the other "experts," prisoners who have been convicted of unusual or heinous crimes, such as serial killers. "If you want to solve the crimes, you need to look to the expert -- the individual who committed similar crimes," said Provo Police Chief Greg Cooper and UTAP state chairman. "This has opened up a tremendous wealth of knowledge."

Investigators use the information as a resource to help solve cases and provide seminars. Police forces from at least eight other states -- including Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico -- have asked to join the program. "UTAP has formalized, in a nonthreatening way, the process of information sharing among law enforcement agencies statewide," said Chief Deputy Attorney General Reed Richards. "As vital information is shared, crimes are solved.

Utahns can now harness e-mail to find criminals. On Monday the Utah Criminal Tracking and Analysis Project (UTAP) unveiled a Web site that links the public with crime investigators around the state. So anyone with an Internet connection can send a tip regarding a missing-person case, an unsolved violent crime or an unidentified body.

"We're hoping the public will go on the site and start mousing around," said Mike King, UTAP's coordinator. At www.UTAP.org, visitors will find pictures of missing persons and crime victims, information about each case and tip submission forms. "Just click on the e-mail link," King said, and you can send your message directly to UTAP. "We think that will help us in areas where people are reluctant to come forward with information." Would-be tippers may feel safer using e-mail, he said. "Leads grow cold," King added, but a fresh lead from a citizen can reopen and help solve even an old case. "You can send in tips, information, even theories" about unsolved crimes, he said. "We think this can speed up the investigative process."

The site, the first of its kind, is the brainchild of Greg Cooper, who spent 10 years as an FBI profiler before becoming Provo's police chief. Through sharing knowledge among the public and Utah's 400 law enforcement agencies, the site "will enhance the resolution rate for these unsolved crimes," Cooper said.

Eight other states including Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico have recently called UTAP, requesting advice on how to build their own crime-analysis sites. The next step, Cooper said, is to consolidate Mountain West states into a single site, accessible to the public and police agencies around the region.

In the past six weeks, while initial construction of the Web site was going on, it received 2,860 visits and UTAP analyzed 60 cases, according to King. "We had a case in Clearfield, a 3-year-old murder case involving a child, that was solved with the help of UTAP forensic experts. The analysis eventually led to a confession and a conviction."

UTAP's site is designed to help police officers around Utah exchange knowledge in the same way that the Internet was originally developed to help university researchers put their heads together. Detectives, psychologists, medical examiners, profilers and the public can contribute to the site, thus arming police with information about past crimes similar to the ones that remain unsolved. Investigators can take advantage of these resources free of charge, King said. "We're hoping we see a deluge of information coming in." UTAP will use its new Web site to promote police training seminars that delve into the criminal psyche. The classes often include interviews with convicted offenders, who talk about the events and thoughts that led up to their crimes.

"We have an aggressive training schedule through December," said King, listing seminars such as "The Making of a Serial Killer," to be held Oct. 11 in Draper, and a Dec. 7 session on "Pyramid Schemes and Financial Fraud," also in Draper.

Utah law enforcement officials should be congratulated for taking the benefits of cyberspace a step further by setting up a new Web site that citizens can access to provide tips and information about unsolved killings and other serious crimes.

The new site, www.UTAP.org, is maintained by the Utah criminal Tracking and Analysis Project. UTAP's job is to facilitate cooperation between law enforcement agencies in major criminal cases, including unsolved homicides, missing persons and unidentified bodies. Aside from its use as a resource for law enforcement agencies investigating these and other cases, it just makes good sense that the site also be able to process e-mail from private citizens about unsolved crimes and even to be able to offer tipsters anonymity.

While most homicide cases, for example, are solved fairly easily, there are some that simply have stumped authorities. These include the murder of a University of Utah student last year in a home invasion robbery, the brutal stabbing of a 10-year-old Salt Lake City girl on her front porch two years ago, and the 1996 slaying of a pizza delivery driver who apparently was run over by her own pickup.

These cases remain open, but mostly are dormant. All the available evidence has been checked and rechecked; every lead has been zealously tracked down, yet authorities have been unable to catch the killers. The new Web site is no guarantee that this will change the status of any of these or other cases, but any provision that encourages the receipt of public information, especially if it is easy and convenient to do so with a minimum of effort, cannot hurt.

Even in routine cases, authorities are dependent upon the good will and cooperation of the public. This is even more so in those difficult cases where leads are few, evidence is scanty and witnesses are reluctant to talk, assuming any can be found at all.

The new Web site represents another important tool that authorities can use to aid them in their job of investigating criminal cases and in identifying and locating suspects. This is the case whether a law enforcement agency is simply tapping counterparts for information about a particular case or is hoping for an e-mail tip that points them in a promising direction on a previously stalemated investigation.
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Detectives from around the state are hoping to hear three simple words when they arrive for work each morning: "You've got mail."

With the help of the information superhighway, police anticipate a newly launched Web site, www.UTAP.org, will snare killers via the Internet and e-mail sent by anonymous tipsters.

"I think it's going to be a huge benefit to both investigators and the public," said Mike King of the Utah Attorney General's Office.

The site, managed by the Utah Criminal Tracking and Analysis Project, is designed to help tipsters contact law enforcement agencies with information they may have regarding an unsolved homicide, missing person or unidentified body.

With a few clicks of the mouse, site visitors can see pictures of the victims, get a detailed description of the victim and the case's progress and get contact information for the investigating officer. Police hope the Web site will help catch murderers, while ensuring tipsters can remain anonymous.

The secrecy of making the tips is what provides a break in many cases that police have working on for months and even years, said Roy Police Lt. Greg Whinham.

"Historically, anonymous tips do come in on major cases," Whinham said. "(Tipsters will) either call in to dispatch, write a letter to police or find a way to pass along the information they have."

Formed in 1997, UTAP's mission is to provide a way for law enforcement agencies in major crimes, including unsolved murders, unidentified bodies and missing persons to share information.

"That's one of the purposes of that whole process is so that we talk together," Whinham said. "The computer puts us together and helps us put gather vital information on cases."

King said that many local cases are in the process of being put on the pages, and that the entire site will be constantly evolving and updated.

Though UTAP will not accept additions from the general public, King said they will add a case if an investigator wants to place the case online. "Eventually we'd like to get all of the cases in the state on the Web site," he said.

Currently, the only local case listed on UTAP's database is a missing person report dating back 15 years when then 25-year-old Sheree Warren was reported missing.

Warren was last seen about 6:30 p.m. on Oct. 2, 1985, as she was leaving work at the Utah State Employees' Credit Union in Salt Lake City. On Nov. 11, 1985, Warren's vehicle was recovered at the Aladdin Hotel parking lot in Las Vegas, NV. The vehicle appeared to have been parked for some time.

And though it has been a long time since Warren was last seen, Whinham said there is still hope that someone, somewhere may have a morsel of information on the case.

"We're convinced there are still people out there who are willing to help us with this case," Whinham said. "It could easily be activated with any new leads or new information."

Eight other missing person reports are active on the Web site ranging from November 1998 to July 1984. No cases are listed yet for unidentified bodies, though all three pages are "under construction."

The unsolved murders page lists 22 active cases dating back to March 1976. The most recent unsolved murder involved 22-year-old Amy Quinton, a University of Utah student who was stabbed to death by a man who broke into her Salt Lake apartment.

King said that the potential success of the UTAP Web site has enlisted inquiries from at least eight surrounding states which have asked to have a link put into the page that will connect the user to their unsolved cases.

"We know of no other agency in the country that is doing a site similar to this," King said. In the past six weeks, while initial construction of the Web site was going on, it received nearly 3,000 visits and UTAP analyzed 60 cases, King said.

Convicted killer Dan Lafferty, 52, talked to Tribune reporters about his crimes. A Utah program has criminals talk to police about their acts, providing clues to catch future perpetrators. (Rick Egan/The Salt Lake Tribune)

Sitting with legs crossed at the front of a hotel conference room, John talks of the summer of 1988 with its open windows and lacy drapery, cool night walks through tree lined neighborhoods and women who sleep in the nude.

John is calm and occasionally cheeky with his audience. But he is precise with details: A small pocket knife, plastic toys in a yard and the tears of some 85 women in 11 states who John __ not his real name __ stalked and raped.

"He's the expert," says Utah Attorney General investigator Mike King, while a videotape of John's presentation plays in his Salt Lake City office. "You get the sense that talking about it is cathartic for him."

Three months ago, 400 New Mexico police officers gathered in an Albuquerque conference room to hear John recount his crimes. For the officers, it was a rare opportunity to be tutored by an expert in the methodology of serial rape.

John is part of a program designed to help law officers learn firsthand what makes a criminal tick. Devised in Utah by

King, Utah Chief Deputy Attorney General Reed Richards and Provo Police Chief Gregory Cooper, the program went national earlier this year at the request of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Since then, King and Cooper have shared their interview methods and profiling models of selected inmates with police agencies in New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Arizona, Massachusetts, Texas, Wyoming and Montana.

"What the inmate does is provide a great example of a certain profile, whether that be cockiness or self_consciousness," says Jeff Pierce, deputy director of the Rocky Mountain Information Network, an agency that collects criminal intelligence for eight Western states under a grant from the Justice Department.

"The law enforcement professionals who are involved in this never forget," says Pierce, who encouraged federal support for Utah's efforts. "It is a sobering, eye_opening event, a real_life validation of the principles that are being taught. After listening to these guys, the officers chasing leads in the field are just a little more wise, a little more attuned to what's going on in the criminal mind."

John is one of six Utah inmates __ each a prototypical offender __ who have agreed to participate. They are promised nothing but the chance to air their dark ruminations before an audience.

King's stock of inmates includes a hermaphrodite who molested some 500 boys and girls over 35 years, a religious cult leader/child abuser, a rapist who targeted professional women, a flimflam artist who took millions through pyramid schemes and murderous polygamist Dan Lafferty __ the only inmate who agreed to the use of his name for this story.

"In most cases we found the inmates were not only willing but eager," says King. "For some of them, it's the first opportunity to be really honest about what they've done."

Next month, John, now serving up to life in prison at Utah State Prison, will speak at a seminar on serial rapists in Duchesne County. In October, King, Cooper and Richards will present a conference on "The Making of a Serial Killer" to officers at the Utah prison.

The October session is based on interviews with a 21_year_old transient whose ritualistic slaying of a 9_year_old California boy shocked even hardened investigators. The confessed killer, now awaiting execution in California's San Quentin Prison, was caught before he could kill again. But King says he had all the makings of a mass murderer.

"This was his first killing and he found it to be more thrilling than anything he had ever done," King says. "He was a boy with incredible confidence problems, but no prior record that we could find. And suddenly he kills one person and the next day nearly kills another. It was about having total dominion and control."

King recently interviewed California mass murderer Richard Ramirez, the so_called Night Stalker. He hopes to include the Ramirez profile in the training that is part of the Utah criminal Tracking and Analysis Project (UTAP). The program, which sponsors the inmate interviews, also acts as Utah's clearinghouse for unsolved homicides, missing persons and unidentified bodies and is teamed with the FBI's Violent Criminal Apprehension Program.

Much of UTAP's mission centers on forming agency partnerships and providing training for local law enforcement. King, a former Weber County investigator, directs the programming based on working relationships with convicted criminals.

"This is about understanding why they do it. That doesn't mean you have to like it, or them. But there is a very meaningful exchange here, empathy if you will," he says. "When the officers start realizing it's not a hunk of meat out there __ that there's fear and disgust and anger and all these other emotions __ that turns them."

While UTAP's program is the first of its kind in the nation, the idea of teaching detectives to become amateur psychologists is not new. Long the grist of pulp fiction, criminal psychology became the focus of an elite team of FBI detectives in the 1980s.

These "profilers," or forensic psychologists, conducted in_depth interviews with prototypical child murderers, serial killers and rapists.

From those interviews, the FBI developed a "profiling" database and went on to crack numerous unsolved crimes by matching characteristics of a crime with the profiled traits of the criminal, such as age, race, profession and marital status.

Profiling is by no means an exact science, but as a teaching model the skills are invaluable, says Provo's Cooper, who studied under the most famous profiler of all, John Douglas.

Douglas, who retired from the FBI five years ago, found certain killing fetishes tended to reveal personality traits. Details of his interviews with Ed Gein, a mass murderer who liked to preserve the skin of his victims and look at himself in feathered masks made from their faces, were popularized in the book and movie "Silence of the Lambs."

Douglas amassed a gruesome list of prison interviews with Gein, Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, David "Son of Sam" Berkowitz and Richard Speck.

Five years before Douglas retired, Cooper joined the FBI's profiling unit. The two became friends and, later, partners in a police consulting firm. Now Cooper is extending the legacy of Douglas' program by casting workaday cops in the role of forensic profiler.

"Instead of trying to theorize about what these criminals are thinking, it's going right to the source," says Cooper. "You can see the lightbulbs go off in the heads of the audience."

In the New Mexico presentation, the serial rapist spends two hours detailing his transformation from long_haul truck driver and part_time burglar with a cocaine addiction into a voyeur fixated on women who sleep in the nude.

John tells how he profiled his victims, targeting single women with children living in poorly kept homes. He recounts how he watched nearby as officers arrived to investigate his rapes.

"He was never violent with any of his victims, but he used the threat [to the children] to get his way. Only one victim ever resisted," King says. "He would look for the type of vehicle, children's toys. He looked at mail to see if it was just delivered to a female's name. He was a voyeur who became an opportunist who would rape."

The ultimate goal of UTAP's program is to teach officers how to catch perpetrators like John. When John leaves the stage, King and Cooper return to guide the officers through the thicket of lies or half_truths he has planted.

King tells the audience that John demanded oral sex from his victims. When rebuffed, he would commit a second rape within two hours. Knowing this, Weber County detectives put hundreds of officers on alert to look for a rape victim who refused oral sex. When that victim suddenly came forward, detectives were ready and John was arrested not far from the crime scene.

"It's the kind of detail you can teach detectives to look for," King says. "Cops know how to investigate. Looking at behavior is the new twist."

© Copyright 2000, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on Utah OnLine is copyrighted The Salt Lake Tribune and associated news services. No material may be reproduced or reused without explicit permission from The Salt Lake Tribune.

UTAH STATE PRISON __ Sixteen years after he slit the throats of his sister_in_law and her daughter in their American Fork home, Dan Lafferty remains tormented by his past.

As a young man, Lafferty backed his vehicle into another car owned by a friend. The collision damaged her fender.

"I never fixed her car for her, and that torments me. Things like that," the Utah State Prison inmate told The Salt Lake Tribune. As for the killings, Lafferty remains convinced he was following God's instructions and feels no remorse.

"I'm not going to offend God by saying something inappropriate like, 'I wish I'd never done it.' I'll never say that. If you're a child of God, it'll make sense to you someday. I'll never say I'm sorry I did it."

Lafferty's cold_blooded candor and use of religious beliefs to justify his crimes make him a compelling subject for homicide investigators seeking insight into the criminal mind. During the past year, Lafferty has told his story several times to groups of law enforcement officers as part of the Utah criminal Tracking and Analysis Project (UTAP), a new program that assists agencies in investigating ritualistic violent crimes. (See story on Page A_1.)

"We looked at Lafferty and thought, 'Here's a guy we can really learn from,' " said state UTAP coordinator Mike King, a criminal investigator with the Utah Attorney General's Office. "My job is to find the truth. And the only real expert [on ritual crime] is the person who's done it."

Lafferty needs little prompting to spin his tale of biblical prophecy and bloodshed. He is soft_spoken, thoughtful and polite, all while revealing chilling glimpses of his skewed morality.

In April, King brought Lafferty before a class on religious_based homicides at a law enforcement conference in Phoenix. When one angry sheriff's deputy confronted the convicted murderer about his lack of remorse, Lafferty calmly replied, "With all due respect, if God asked me to, I'd kill you right now."

"That kind of mindset frightens me," said King, who has established an unusual friendship with the longtime inmate. "I have many things I like about Dan Lafferty, but I don't ever want to see him on the street."

That won't happen soon __ if ever. Lafferty, who narrowly avoided being sentenced to death, is serving two consecutive life terms for his role in the July 24, 1984, slayings. He has little chance of parole. His older brother, Ron Lafferty, is on death row for the same crimes. Speaking with unnerving matter_of_factness, the younger Lafferty appears remarkably untroubled by having taken the lives of a young woman and her child.

"Just recently I had a [new inmate] come to my [cell] door and call me a baby killer. It was sort of humorous. I'm not sure how else to respond to these kinds of things. I find myself smiling in their face," Lafferty said. "He came up and pushed this other guy away from my door and said, 'Do you realize this guy killed a baby? He cut her throat so deep her head nearly fell off!' And I said, 'So what's your point?' Don't call anybody a fool for what they feel led to do."

The grisly facts are undisputed: On Pioneer Day afternoon, Dan and Ron Lafferty pushed their way into the home of 24_year_old Brenda Wright Lafferty while her husband, Allen Lafferty, was away. As she pleaded for her daughter's life, the two men beat her and throttled her with a vacuum cord. Dan then stepped into the bedroom and, as the girl cried out for her mother, slashed the throat of Brenda's 15_month_old daughter, Erica. That done, he used the same knife to finish off Brenda.

'School of Prophets': By the time of the murders, Ron and Dan Lafferty had been excommunicated from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter_day Saints for their radical views. Both had joined a renegade polygamist cult called "School of Prophets," whose members sought to receive and share revelations from God.

In March 1984, Ron claimed to have received a revelation ordering the killings of Brenda Lafferty and her daughter because the woman stood in the way of the cult's work.

"It was a cold_blooded murder for sure," Dan Lafferty told The Tribune last week. "I wasn't anxious, I wasn't vengeful, I wasn't hateful. It was just business, that's all. I had a calm peacefulness when I did it. I was being led by the Spirit."

Dan was convicted of the murders in January 1985 but spared the death penalty by a lone holdout juror. Ron was convicted in a separate trial later that year, but the verdict was overturned in 1991 by a federal appeals court on the grounds that attorneys never established whether he was mentally fit to stand trial. Ron was sentenced to death after a retrial in 1996.

Allen Lafferty now is remarried and living in California. He and Dan have not spoken since the trials in 1985, and Dan Lafferty's letters to his brother have gone unanswered. "I've told him, I don't expect you to understand this completely, but I don't feel like I've done wrong and one day it'll all make sense," Dan Lafferty said. "I tell him it'll have a happy ending."

This "happy ending" relates to the evolution of Dan Lafferty's religious views during the 16 years he has been incarcerated. About four years ago, Lafferty says, he began receiving revelations casting him as a modern_day Elijah, a prophet whose role is to prepare the world for the Second Coming of Christ. Lafferty believes the events of his life, including the murders, are part of a divine plan that will somehow spring him from prison upon Jesus' return.

"I believe there's an unseen hand, guiding everything that takes place. It all just feels right. To prepare the way for Christ __ yes, I believe that's what I was born into the world to do."

'Comforting Delusion': "That's a very comforting delusion," said David Tomb, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Utah Medical School. Criminals cling to delusions to explain their actions, he said. "They're often using delusions to combat a sense of inferiority. Their life has gone down the tubes. It's the only way they can live with themselves."

Despite his loyalty to God, Lafferty no longer believes in organized religion. He has nothing but contempt for the Mormon religion in which he was raised, and, after committing much of it to memory, he tore up his Bible eight years ago. In Lafferty's mind, everyone is either a child of God or a child of the devil. Brenda and Erica Lafferty were children of the devil, so they needed to be killed. At the Second Coming of Christ, Lafferty believes, all the devil's children will be wiped from the earth.

"He's a religious nut," said investigator King. "This is a guy who knew what society's standards were. He knew what he was doing was wrong, but he'd rather offend society than offend God."

Lafferty now believes his brother Ron is a child of the devil. He also claims Ron tried repeatedly to kill him in 1984 while the pair were being held at the Utah County Jail.

"He was being told by voices to take my life," said Lafferty, who claims Ron tried to stab him with a sharpened pencil and later choked him with a towel. Lafferty said he surrendered willingly to the choking, passed out and awoke some time later on the floor. "I was not afraid to die. If I'm willing to take life, I guess I should also be willing to give my life."

At 52, Dan Lafferty is a graying, prison_savvy version of the twinkle_eyed defendant who repelled and riveted Utahns during court appearances more than 15 years ago. He hasn't shaved his beard since the day he was sentenced in January 1985; it now hangs, rope_like and bound by rubber bands, to his waist. On his left elbow is a spider_web tattoo commemorating his first 10 years in prison.

Lafferty's cellmate in the prison's maximum security wing is Mark Hofmann, who killed two Salt Lake City residents in much_publicized 1985 pipe bombings Hofmann hoped would divert attention from a forgery scheme he was attempting to perpetuate on the LDS Church.

"We are the archtypical opposites," Lafferty said of his notorious cellmate, with whom he has become friends. "I'm a religious fanatic. You might call him an atheist. But we are brothers, which has been so valuable to me."

In turn, King believes Lafferty is valuable to the UTAP program. Lafferty lends his services to UTAP in part because he likes King, who treats him with respect. "I consider Mike King a friend. I call him my manager, setting up gigs."

Lafferty also believes his UTAP appearances give him a platform for spreading his religious views.

"They always have me run through the gory details, and that's fine. They seem to think [I can help]. I doubt it. The truth is, I feel like I'm using them."

Brenda Lafferty's father agrees. Jim Wright sees Lafferty as a manipulator whose rationale for committing the murders is bogus. By inviting Lafferty to speak in public, authorities are playing into his hand, he said.

"He thrives on telling his story," Wright said by phone from his Idaho home. "He's supposed to be in there to be punished for what he did. It's probably rewarding him more than it's helping them."

Wright has long since stopped hoping for an apology from Lafferty for the loss of his daughter and grandchild. And Lafferty is not inclined to offer one since he believes God has assured him he did nothing wrong.

Wright's response is "absolutely understandable," said King. "The secret here is that in order to understand the mind of these people you've got to give officers the opportunity to talk to them."

Lafferty denies his religious views are an elaborate justification for languishing behind bars as a scorned child_killer. But he concedes the convoluted path he claims to be following on behalf of God __ to kill two people, go to prison, become a prophet and pave the way for Jesus' return __ sounds far_fetched.

"It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, no, to be honest. Sometimes I think to myself, 'Am I crazy?' And I might be. And if I am, that's OK, too. It's all just survival. Do whatever it is that enables you to survive the best you can. If you feel the need to play the game of religion, play it.

"If I had known when I first came that I was going to be here 16 years, I don't think I could have handled it. I've always believed I've only got a few more weeks to go. I still hope. It's like a carrot sitting in front of me. That's the way I do time. I don't think my mind could comprehend the thought of never getting out."

THE police in Utah have a new tool for solving cases of murder, missing persons and unidentified bodies: a Web site that provides statewide crime information for investigators and the public.
"It's like crime-stoppers in cyberspace," said Mike King, chief of the criminal support unit of the Utah Attorney General's Office and the coordinator for the Web site of the Utah Criminal Tracking and Analysis Project, a group of crime experts.
The site (www.utap.org) has a twofold purpose. Anyone with information about a crime can send it anonymously via e-mail, and investigators statewide can share data about similar crimes or people who are missing by posting reports about what has occurred in their areas.
"An investigator in the southern part of our state, which is much more rural, might come across an unidentified body," Mr. King said, "and he can go immediately to the Web site and hopefully see all of the missing people from the state. Or they might see a similarity between two cases, maybe a serial homicide."
Mr. King pointed out that he had noticed eerie similarities in the cases of two women who disappeared on the same date, but four years apart, in different parts of the state. "See how they look alike, and notice those dates?" he said.
One woman, Peggy Sue Case, vanished from Spanish Forks on July 9, 1988, and the other, Debra Lee Frost of Salt Lake City, was last seen on July 9, 1984. "There may not be any connection," Mr. King said, "but maybe no one noticed those similarities before their photos were there on the site, side by side almost."
Although Mr. King refused to divulge details of any open cases, he said that one 12-year-old homicide was on the verge of being solved as a result of e-mail received at the site. "The officer got an e-mail saying, `I am the girlfriend of the person who committed this murder,' and they have since spoken," he said.
Mr. King acknowledged that e- mail was not entirely anonymous, but he said that the police did not intend to track down e-mail tipsters. "There is the possibility they could be tracked down," he said, "but officers have not gone out of their way to find out who that person sending the e-mail is."
And investigators are counting on the comfortable feeling of anonymity people get with e-mail. "People can develop relationships and get married after meeting online," Mr. King said, "so they must feel comfortable for some reason."
The Utah Criminal Tracking and Analysis Project was formed in 1997 to encourage cooperation among various law enforcement agencies. Mr. King said investigators in the state hoped to combine their resources and expertise for some cases to increase the odds of solving them.
Members of the Utah Criminal Tracking and Analysis Project also meet with convicted criminals to learn more about how they select victims and commit crimes, and the group provides training seminars for police officers and investigators. The group is not involved in solving the cases posted on the Web, but instead serves as an intermediary for sharing information.
Mr. King, who is paid by the Attorney General's Office to maintain the site, created the site by himself in one long weekend. "After about six months of trying to get Webmasters," he said with a laugh, "I gave up and bought a `Web Design for Dummies' book, went home one weekend and learned how to do it. It seems to be working O.K."
So far the site has color pictures and statistical information for about 10 percent to 15 percent of the state's missing-person and unsolved homicide cases. Individual police departments must supply the site with crime data from their areas by filling out submission forms they can obtain on the site. The site has been up for about three months and has had more than 17,000 visitors.
"It's hard to tell how successful it is," Mr. King said. "One of the core missions is to provide this service without becoming involved in the investigations. The e-mails go directly to the investigators."
Mr. King said that he did not know of any other state or police agencies with similar sites and that he would like to see a multistate task force working together online.
While the e-mail tips are welcomed, Mr. King said, old-fashioned police work is still the key to solving crimes. "I think the benefit goes a lot further than a hopeful e-mail of remembering a guy in a blue Chevy," he said. "Hopefully this will help them triage the case and get lucky and solve the crime a little sooner."

Enemy of time fades in unsolved crimes
Tuesday, October 31, 2000
By L. ANNE NEWELL
The Associated Press

ROY -- Sometimes when the phone rings unexpectedly or the doorbell chimes at an odd hour, Mary Sorensen thinks it might bring the an answer to the question she has been asking herself for 15 years: Why did her daughter disappear on Oct. 2, 1985? "I think you always wish for that," the Roy woman says three weeks after the anniversary of Sheree Warren's disappearance. "You know, when you're not expecting the doorbell to ring." Warren, 25, walked out of the Utah State Employees' Credit Union, where she was in management training, about 6:30 p.m. She was wearing black heels and a red and white striped blouse with a gold necklace. She had dark brown hair and hazel eyes, a chipped tooth and a subtle smile.

Authorities found her car a month later at a Las Vegas hotel. "You feel about the same now as you did then," Mary Sorensen says. "Your feelings don't change a lot. It's still remorse and wistful that things could be different." Sorensen and her husband, Edwin, aren't alone.
There's a long list of Utah families waiting for explanations about where their loved ones are; men, women and children who have been gone for decades while police stare at their photos, sending them out every so often hoping for that one tip that will break open the case.

Their names and faces fill the online version of the three-year-old Utah criminal Tracking and Analysis Project, a crime-fighting team modeled on the FBI's Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. Names such as Johanna Leatherbury, 18, who was reported missing on Aug. 21, 1971. Her nude body was found the next day near the Great Salt Lake. She'd been shot and sexually assaulted. Or Valaine Briggs, 19, who was walking from home to the LDS Business College when she disappeared on May 5, 1977. Her nude body was found two days later in Lamb's Canyon. And Bertha Hughes, 81, who was found dead in her Salt Lake County home by family members March 17, 1982. She had been sexually assaulted. Their smiling faces stare out from the UTAP Web site, clothes and haircuts now far out of date. Two decades can do a lot to discourage families, cities, even the officers assigned to deliver justice and explanations. And it would be discouraging, says Mike King, an investigator for the Utah Attorney General's Office, if cases just like these weren't being solved nearly every day.

King points to cases such as that of Barbara Kaye Williams, whose nude body was found in Juab County on March 22, 1991. Last year, Williams' mother, who lives in Florida, contacted authorities because she was grew suspicious after not hearing from her daughter. Williams' husband confessed to the killing after being questioned. Then there's 7-week-old Ian Wing, whose 1996 death was the first case solved by UTAP. In 1998, Ian's father admitted to King he'd squeezed the child to death to keep him quiet. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
"Time is usually an enemy in law enforcement, but sometimes it works to our advantage," King says.

He says advances in forensic technology during the past decade have made more evidence available in old crimes. For example, if physical evidence has been retained, it can be put through DNA testing now. "I think the advances forensically that have occurred in the last 10, 15 years alone ensure that if police departments are in a position where they can take old physical evidence and run it through the forensics office, they would score a victory every now and then just based on that," King says. Weber County Attorney's Office Investigator Shane Minor, the latest person to work on the Sheree Warren case, agrees. "I think the technology does it," he says. But it's not always the technology that gets confessions, King says. Sometimes it's a case of "telltale heart syndrome," when a person feels so guilty for committing murder that confession or madness becomes necessary. "You see all kinds of problems," King says. "A person who was pretty much a normal person starts having to run from all the terror of the incident and starts committing other crimes."

Other Utah investigators have similar tales. Salt Lake County Sheriff's Sgt. Jerry Townsend, who heads the Leatherbury, Briggs and Hughes investigations, says one case his agency solved happened because the murderer kept bragging about the woman he killed. Bonnie Sievers Ryan, who was six months pregnant, was shot in the head as she got into her car. Eventually, one of Michael Robert Jones' ex-wives told police of the crime. Nationally, the story is much the same. New York City's cold case squad cleared 280 cases in its first three years. The Washington, D.C., cold-case squad closed 157 old homicides and several high-profile attempted-murder cases in its first five years. In Prince George's County, Md., police recently solved the 45-year-old murder of two teen-age girls.

All of which means that one day when the phone rings, it might be the call Mary Sorensen has waited for as she watched her daughter's son grow up, as she and her husband had their girl legally declared dead and held a memorial service, as she watched every news report on every body found in Utah for 15 years and wondered if it could be her daughter. "There are those times that are bad," she says. "It being this many years, it's still hard ... but the right person might hear something someday."

Using the Net to Net Criminals
Police in Utah are learning to use the Internet to solve what were once unsolvable crimes.
By Jack Karp
November 20, 2000

Law enforcement officers in Utah are taking advantage of the Internet's widespread popularity to help them solve crimes.

The Utah Criminal Tracking and Analysis Project (UTAP) recently unveiled a public website designed to help Utah police gather and share clues about their cases. The website, which is the first of its kind in the country, allows users throughout the world to view photographs of victims, read case files, get progress reports, and contact investigating officers directly concerning unsolved crimes. The hope is that when a visitor to the site comes across a case he or she knows something about, that person will email or call the investigating officer with a lead or tip.

"The problem with tipster lines is that a call goes to a central location where one person must deal with all the cases," site administrator Mike King told CyberCrime in a recent interview. "We've tried to bypass that and allow a tipster to go straight to the investigating officer."

King also hopes that the anonymity of email and the Web will aid the system. "We think that will help us in areas where people are reluctant to come forward with information," King says.

In addition to allowing the public to submit clues about cases, the UTAP site allows police officers and law-enforcement agents to share those clues. Not only can police departments get information about unsolved cases on the site, but they can also add to that information and post their own cases. Detectives, psychologists, criminal profilers, and medical examiners from all over Utah submit cases to UTAP, both electronically and on paper. King manages to get most new cases posted to the UTAP site within 24 hours.

"It's like crime-stoppers in cyberspace," King says. The site, which was first hatched by Provo police chief and former FBI profiler Greg Cooper, currently posts case files belonging to 26 unsolved murders, 11 missing persons, and one unidentified body. Listed victims include Anna Palmer, who was 10 years old when she was murdered, and Theresa R. Greaves, who hasn't been seen since October 5, 1983. The site, which has been online since the summer of 2000, has received 20,952 visitors so far. At its peak, it gets 2,000 hits per day, according to King.

"There really hasn't been one single source for law enforcement agencies to get information on unidentified bodies and unsolved homicides," King says. "With the Internet, we can also use the public more and gather information that way."

"I received a letter within the past week which I am currently following up on and [that] may be very helpful," Detective Cameron M. Noel of the Beaver County Sheriff's Office told CyberCrime about the case he has posted on the UTAP site. Detective Noel is currently investigating the mysterious death of Karen Lee Jarvis, whose body was found naked and decomposed in her Beaver City apartment in 1998.

"I have also had many people in my small community contact me about the case," he says. "I have found the UTAP [site] very helpful, with not only my case, but have heard from other investigators that it is a great tool."

Detective Scott Cosgrove of the Box Elder County police department and Sergeant Jerry Townsend of the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office Homicide Unit also tell CyberCrime that they have received several tips about their cases via the UTAP site.

King and the other officers involved in UTAP hope that tips such as these, which come from the public via the Internet, will someday help put to rest many of Utah's unsolved cases. "I think it's going to be a huge benefit to both investigators and the public," he says. "It's a way to speed up the investigations and bring closure to families."

Peering Into the Minds of Killers and Rapists
Utah Program Lets Police Question Inmates' Motives and Methods
Dec. 1, 2000
By Robert Anthony Phillips (Click here to read the actual article)

SALT LAKE CITY (APBnews.com) -- The experts include a deranged killer who said he slit a baby's throat because God ordered him to and a pedophile who revealed the subtle tricks he used to sexually abuse more than 500 children over 35 years. And the people they are telling this to are police. The religious killer and pedophile are part of a stable of inmates, most serving life terms, being used in a program here to help law enforcement authorities crawl inside the minds of some of the country's most notorious criminals and find out the motivations that led them to commit the crimes.

Unique project
Utah Criminal Tracking and Analysis Project The Utah Criminal Tracking and Analysis Project, a 3-year-old program, is the only one of its kind operated by any state. The program profiles certain types of criminals and helps bring together police agencies throughout the state to investigate unsolved cases and share information.

As an offshoot of the project, imprisoned criminals are brought to police conferences to talk about their bizarre crimes. The hope is that by hearing firsthand how and why these men committed their crimes, police will gain insights that will help them nab others committing similar acts and learn what interviewing techniques work best on them, the project's founders say.

"We can read all the books we want, talk to all the people who have talked to serial murders or serial rapists, but we need to go to the experts to find out what their motivations are," said the program's co-founder, Chief Mike King.

Brutal child-killing
Those "experts" include Dan Lafferty, who is serving a double life term for participating with his brother, Ron, in the murders of their sister-in-law and her 15-month-old child in 1984.

King said Ron Lafferty had told his brother that he received a revelation to kill Brenda Wright Lafferty -- their brother's wife -- and her daughter, Erica. King said Dan Lafferty believed his brother. The men had been excommunicated from the Mormon Church and had joined the School of Prophets, a radical cult whose members received revelations from God.

The brothers went into Brenda Wright Lafferty's home while her husband was away and beat her. Dan Lafferty went into the bedroom, where the 15-month-old child was screaming, and slashed the child's throat with a knife. Dan Lafferty then went back and slashed the mother's throat.
Ron Lafferty received a death sentence for the murders, and Dan Lafferty a double life term in prison. King said that the real reason Ron Lafferty wanted the woman killed was that he believed she had helped break up his marriage.

Greg Cooper Under the program, the facts of the Lafferty case are presented to the conference, and, in the grand finale, Dan Lafferty is brought out to talk about the crime and answer questions. Last summer, Lafferty was brought before a conference of homicide investigators in Phoenix.
"It's an opportunity to go full circle," said Provo Police Chief Greg Cooper, who with King and the state's attorney general's office was a co-founder of the program. Cooper was a former FBI agent, instructor and member of the bureau's Behavioral Sciences Unit.
"We present the cases through the eyes of the victim [when possible], the investigator, the prosecutor and the criminal," he said. "Most police officers don't have the opportunity to talk to these type of offenders. ... In the event it does happen, they will have had some exposure and training."
Lafferty, King said, showed no emotion when he told the officers how he killed and why. He believes he is the biblical prophet Elijah, King said.
"The police are amazed that the guy shows zero emotion when he talks about the murders. To them it is very disturbing. His choice was not to offend God. He says killing them was no big deal."

Ego boost for criminals?
But not everyone is enamored with criminals like Lafferty being brought out to talk about their crimes. The father of Brenda Wright Lafferty has

Predator/Serial Rapist Training Recap April 15, 1999 by Patti Donohoo Criminal Justice Student Weber State University, Ogden, Utah

Using the Net to Net Criminals Police in Utah are learning to use the Internet to solve what were once unsolvable crimes. By Jack Karp November 20, 2000

Predator/Serial Rapist Training Recap
April 15, 1999
by Patti Donohoo
Criminal Justice Student
Weber State University, Ogden, Utah

Using the Net to Net Criminals
Police in Utah are learning to use the Internet to solve what were once unsolvable crimes.
By Jack Karp
November 20, 2000