Olsen trial may be delayed another year

PROVO — State prosecutors have been waiting one year to try a man they say killed 15-year-old Kiplyn Davis. But an appeal process and the potential for legal glitches could force them to wait another year.

Timmy Brent Olsen, 29, was absent again for a hearing in Provo's 4th District Court Friday afternoon to determine the status of his first-degree felony murder case.

Olsen was charged in January 2006 with Davis's death after she disappeared from Spanish Fork High School 12 years ago.

He was recently sentenced to 12 1/2 years in federal prison for lying to federal officers about the case. He's currently serving time in Phoenix, Ariz.

The perjury trial prevented state prosecutors from going forward with their murder case.

And now that Olsen has appealed that sentence, it might may mean another year-long delay.

Olsen has requested the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals to review his case. If the court denies him, he could go to the Supreme Court, although prosecutor Mariane O'Bryant doubts the high court would take the case.

Along with the appeal, Olsen is also being difficult with prosecutors by refusing to waive an "anti-shuttling" provision.

That provision means that if Olsen were taken by Utah County prosecutors to begin his murder trial and federal prosecutors decided later they needed Olsen back, the state would have to dismiss its case.

That's not a risk the state is willing to take, prosecutors said, even though the probability of federal officials needing him is very low.

"This is not the kind of case I'm willing to lose on a technicality," O'Bryant told Judge Lynn Davis.

"Do you simply want to dismiss your case now without prejudice?" Judge Davis asked. "It's been pending since January 2006 and we don't even have him before this court."

Dismissing the case without prejudice would mean the state could re-file the case after the appeal process, but that's not a route prosecutors want either.

Instead, they'll provide Davis with more information about the statute, as well as case law showing that the state would have to dismiss in the event that the federal prosecutors chose to call Olsen back on their charges.

And then the state will wait.

They'll wait until Olsen exhausts his appeal opportunities and has no choice but to face the murder charge, which carries a potential of life in prison.

And Kiplyn Davis' family, who keep hoping to one day find her body and lay it to rest, will wait as well.

"I'll wait a year, if that's what it takes," said Richard Davis, Kiplyn's father. "I don't want anything to go wrong. I think it's going to happen within the next year."

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