Eagle Mtn. wife gets protective order against husband

PROVO — He told her she was a bad mom, she didn't keep the house clean and that he had wasted 12 years of his life with her, court documents say.

Then, according to documents, Matthew Graham got his guns and told his wife to kill herself.

"I was afraid because he had never gotten his guns out because he was mad before," wrote Mindy Graham in a request for a protective order against her husband. "I feared for my safety and the safety of my children because he was behaving very irrationally and erratically."

Graham was arrested outside his Eagle Mountain home on Jan. 31 after a four-hour standoff with SWAT teams, during which he boasted about his military experience, threatened officers and demanded that SWAT leave.

Monday afternoon in 4th District Court, Mindy Graham was granted her protective order, which forbids harassment from her husband, who is in the Utah County Jail on $50,000 cash-only bail, charged with three felonies, including aggravated assault, threat against life and property and domestic violence in the presence of a child.

Mindy Graham said the situation began that morning with an argument over physical intimacy, then escalated to her husband calling her names and insulting her, according to the request for a protective order.

Mandy Graham said that when her husband left the bedroom to get his guns, she sent a text message to a friend and the bishop of her LDS ward, asking for help.

After forcing her to hang up her phone, Graham then threw a backpack at her and told their children that their mother was going to kill herself and "quit on them," Mindy Graham wrote.

"The children and I were crying and shaking," she wrote. "(Our son) asked me why (dad) was holding the guns and why daddy's finger was on the trigger inside the house."

By that time, police officers had arrived and asked to talk with Graham. He refused to come out but allowed his wife and children to leave.

For the next several hours, officers tried to convince Graham to surrender. After being given a letter from police that said he wouldn't be charged, he came out.

He was immediately arrested and booked into the Utah County Jail.

"I told police repeatedly during the standoff not to go on the property because I felt confident that he would shoot them if he felt threatened," Mindy Graham wrote.

Inside the house, Graham had more than 10 guns. documents say.