Police briefs

16-year-old is killed in crash on I-70

GREEN RIVER — A 16-year-old boy was killed on icy roads along I-70 near here.

The Utah Highway Patrol said the crash happened Saturday when a 2002 Ford Explorer traveling from Mexico to Nebraska was going too fast on icy roads and lost control. The vehicle slid into the median and rolled several times, the UHP said.

Octavio Garcia Rivas was thrown from the vehicle and killed. The driver and the other four passengers inside the SUV were seat-belted in. One passenger suffered a leg injury, the rest were not injured, the UHP said.

— Ben Winslow

Man tells police he steals to pay bills

PROVO — A man in jail for investigation of a string of car burglaries allegedly told officers he would smash and grab whenever he ran out of money to pay his bills.

On Feb. 1, police responded to an underground parking lot at 878 E. 700 North where several residents had reported their car windows were broken and their stereos missing, according to an affidavit filed in 4th District Court.

The criminal activity looked the same for each of the nine cars, police said. The thief broke a window and climbed into the locked car to snag stereos or other valuables left in the vehicle, the affidavit states.

The case was cold for several months until police matched a fingerprint from the smashed-in cars with a fingerprint from a man who had been booked into the Utah County Jail on March 26 for unrelated allegations of burglary and theft, according to the report.

During an interview at the jail, the man allegedly told police he had been working in Park City in a kitchen but couldn't pay all his bills. The man, 22, said he would go out once a week, or as needed, to parking garages and break into cars, then sell the items he stole to his friends, the affidavit states.

He's now being held in jail on new allegations of criminal mischief, theft and vehicle burglary.

— Sara Israelsen-Hartley

Ex-detective pleads guilty to sex abuse

A former Murray police detective pleaded guilty to two counts of forcible sex abuse Monday in a case where he admitted sexually abusing a teenage girl over the course of five years.