Jury delivers guilty verdicts in Lost Boy murder trial

A jury deliberated five hours late Tuesday before returning guilty verdicts on both counts in the murder trial of Parley Jeffs Dutson.

Made up of six women and two men, the jury returned at 9:15 p.m., with one female juror who walked in sobbing audibly and wiping her eyes. Another woman covered her mouth when the verdict was read.

Dutson, 19, was charged with first-degree felony murder and aggravated sexual assault in 3rd District Court stemming from the April 7, 2007 death of Kara Hopkins.

The jury found him guilty of both offenses and Judge Royal Hansen set a tentative sentencing date of Aug. 22. Prior to that, officials will conduct a pre-sentence investigation to determine sentencing recommendations.

The murder charge carries a potential sentence of 15 years to life. The judge could impose a sentence ranging from 6, 10 years or 15 years to life on the aggravated sexual assault conviction.

Hopkins' family wept when the verdict was read, while Dutson showed no emotion, whispering something to his brother at the conclusion of the day's proceedings.

Prosecutors said Dutson gunned down his girlfriend after she refused his sexual advances during a night of partying.

The two had been a couple off and on for two years and Hopkins was killed at a West Jordan apartment Dutson shared with two other young men.

Prosecutors said eyewitnesses to the shooting reported that Dutson had tried to rip Hopkins' clothes off at the party, demanded in vulgar terms that she have sex with him on the spot and then grew angry with her when she resisted. She was shot in the back of the head and witnesses reported that Jeffs was chanting as he knelt by her nearly nude body.

The defense has argued that Dutson grew up in the Fundamentalist LDS Church town of Colorado City, left home at age 16, faced some hard times and wound up drinking and doing drugs.

On the night of the slaying, Dutson, a former "Lost Boy," had consumed alcohol, and a concoction of tea brewed with psychedelic mushrooms.

In testimony earlier today, forensic scientist Stephen Golding testified about the effects of psilocybin-bearing mushrooms, which can impair judgment, behavior, speech and coordination.