'You can't sugarcoat evil,' prosecutor says

LOGAN — Evidence in a Hyrum teenager's grisly slaying will be difficult at times, but it will not be watered down in any way, jurors were told on the opening day of Cody Lynn Nielsen's capital murder trial.

"You can't sugarcoat evil," prosecutor Scott Wyatt said in his opening statement Tuesday.

Wyatt painted a gruesome picture of Trisha Ann Autry's murder for the six-woman, eight-man jury — one in which the teen was kidnapped during an early-morning walk on June 24, 2000, killed and then systematically dismembered and her remains burned almost beyond recognition.

"When he started, he started with a 15-year-old beautiful, vibrant girl at the beginning of her life," he said. "When he ended, he left nothing but ashes and rubble."

Nielsen, 31, is charged with capital murder, first-degree felony aggravated kidnapping, second-degree felony kidnapping and two third-degree felony counts of desecration of a human body.

"He sat up on that hill and piece by piece took her body apart, ripped her flesh from her bones," Wyatt said.

Nielsen sat with his head down throughout the prosecutor's comments, writing on a piece of paper and never looking around the packed courtroom.

Nielsen's defense team opted not to make an opening statement. Defense attorney Shannon Demler said he will offer a statement before he begins presenting his case, which is expected to be early next week.

Outside of court, Demler denied Nielsen had anything to do with Autry's death and criticized Wyatt's dramatic opening statement.

"It was far exaggerated," he said. "There won't be facts that back up what he said."

Nielsen pleaded guilty in January 2003 to capital murder as part of a deal to spare his life. He later withdrew his plea, however, and asked for a trial.

Nearly one year after Autry's disappearance, pieces of her body were unearthed at a Cache County wildlife research facility where Nielsen worked at the time of the slaying.

At the first dig, on May 14, 2001, investigators found a silver-dollar-size piece of jawbone, followed several hours later by the rest of the jawbone and several smaller bone fragments.

"From the discovery of that jawbone, you start to hear the horror that the defendant put her through," Wyatt said. "It was as if the bone said, 'I am Trisha Autry. Let me tell you what he did to me.' "