Lack of body is a concern

OREM — It sounds like the plot of a late-night TV legal drama: There's a missing person and a murder charge — but police have yet to find a body.

But that's the challenge Utah County prosecutors face as they start to mount a case against Timmy Brent Olsen, who was charged last week with first-degree felony murder in connection with the 1995 disappearance of 15-year-old Kiplyn Davis.

"We don't have a body, and that is a concern," said Utah County Attorney Kay Bryson. "It certainly is a complicating factor. It would certainly help our prosecution to have Kiplyn Davis found and returned home. But it's obvious today that we're prepared to proceed without having recovered the body."

While such cases are difficult, University of Utah law professor Erik Luna says it is "totally possible to convict someone without recovering the body."

"There is no legal bar to it, no theoretical problem, just one of evidence," Luna said. "Will the prosecution be able to show proof beyond a reasonable doubt that a homicide has been committed? And that this defendant committed it?"

Specific evidentiary details have not been released in the case against Olsen because they came from a federal grand jury. Those proceedings are protected by federal law.

The grand jury was called to investigate Olsen and and four other men for allegedly lying to federal and local officials about their knowledge of Davis' disappearance.

The five men — Olsen, Garry Blackmore, Scott Brunson, Christopher Jeppson and David Rucker Leifson — were indicted on charges of perjury and lying to FBI agents. Two of the men, Blackmore and Brunson, reached plea bargains in exchange for testimony.

Bryson obtained copies of the grand jury transcripts, which allowed his office to file the murder charge in 4th District Court.

Grand jury witnesses can be used to support the prosecutor's murder case. Bryson said he expects the trial to start midsummer, after the federal perjury proceedings.

A Weber County case was prosecuted successfully although no body was found.

In 1985, Joyce Yost was kidnapped and raped by Douglas Lovell. In an attempt to prevent her from testifying against him, Lovell kidnapped her again and killed her, said Gary Heward, who worked on the case for the Weber County Attorney's Office.

Prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty if Lovell, who pleaded guilty, would take them to the body. Lovell, who is on death row, took the deal.

"He took us to where he claimed he had buried her," Heward said. "We took Herculean efforts to locate anything."

They used search dogs, metal detectors and even a bulldozer to scour the area looking for remains. Yost's body was never found, and the deal with Lovell was off.