Jury weighing fate in 1980 slaying

FARMINGTON — The fate of Edward Lewis Owens is now in the hands of a jury that must decide whether he is guilty of killing a woman in 1980.

Jurors deliberated until 9 p.m. Tuesday without reaching a verdict before asking the judge to let them go home and return Wednesday morning.

During closing arguments on Tuesday, prosecutors once again pointed to Owens as the man who strangled a struggling and desperate Karin Strom to death in the bedroom of her Woods Cross home 29 years ago.

But defense attorneys countered that the 25-year-old dead woman's fingernails held DNA not only from Owens, but also from her estranged and sometimes violent husband, Steven Strom, as well as two other identified donors, leaving open the possibility that someone else killed her.

The jury went out at 12:40 p.m. Tuesday to deliberate and decide the fate of Owens, 58, who is charged with first-degree felony murder.

Owens had been charged with the same crime before and was set to go on trial in 2008, but prosecutors asked that the case be dismissed then.

Charges were refiled eight months later.

Prosecutor William McGuire Tuesday outlined a series of events that showed only Owens could have been at the Strom home during the time of the killing, including the fact that Owens left the machine shop where he worked a night shift for a meal and did not return until 4 a.m. Steven Strom worked a graveyard shift at the same place, so Owens would know when Karin Strom would be alone in the house.

McGuire also said that Owens told a friend he was with Karin Strom that night, she wanted to split with her husband and go off with Owens and she and Owens fought about that.

Further, McGuire said Owens, upon coming back to work, gave conflicting accounts of the many scratches on his hands, first saying he had been playing with his dog, but the next day telling a co-worker the cuts were from machinery at work.

"Why didn't he tell the co-worker the day before? Because neither of these explanations were accurate," McGuire said. "Karin Strom made those."

Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings sketched charts on a whiteboard to illustrate information from four different DNA experts regarding Karin Strom's hands and material taken from Owens. "In 1980, the evidence existed on Karin Strom's body, but the science didn't exist."