The following story was written by Eric S. Peterson of The Utah Investigative Journalism Project and published in partnership with The Salt Lake Tribune. Prosecutors filed 10 felony charges Wednesday against Tyler Agustin Jex, a former teaching aide for deaf children in Utah, alleging he raped and sexually assaulted multiple students. It has been a...
Category: Crime
Prosecutor covering two counties is stretched thin–raising questions about the quality of justice in Wayne County
The following story was written and reported by Eric Peterson of The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with The Salt Lake Tribune and The Insider newspaper in Wayne and Garfield counties. Loa • On July 31, 2018, a Wayne County sheriff’s deputy pulled up on an ugly scene: A woman stood in the driveway...
Knights of the Crystal Blade: Cultists used social media to spread doomsday revelations
The following was written and researched by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with The Spectrum & Daily News. Eugene Richardson is a Mormon fundamentalist who lives on a very lonely patch of desert about 45 minutes west of Cedar City. He lives in a small trailer on 80 acres of sand and sagebrush...
There’s evidence missing from Salt Lake City’s cold case files. But police have never done an audit to know how much
The following is the second in a two-part series that was written and researched by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with The Salt Lake Tribune. Read Part 1 here. Anthony Adams, a gay, black Socialist activist, was found brutally stabbed to death in his Salt lake City Avenues apartment on Nov. 6, 1978....
The murder of Anthony Adams: A four-decade-old mystery that Salt Lake City Police are still investigating
The following is the first in a two-part series written and researched by The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with The Salt Lake Tribune. You can read part 2 here. “Who Killed Anthony Adams?” The question spray-painted as graffiti across Salt Lake City 40 years ago still begs an answer. Adams’ body was discovered...
Third former Daggett County jail inmate files lawsuit over abuse, torture
This story was reported and written by Rone Tempest of the Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with The Salt Lake Tribune. A third former inmate at the Daggett County jail filed suit in federal court Wednesday claiming that he was repeatedly shocked with stun guns and subjected to dog attacks by a guard at...
The cheap drug spice is on the rise in Salt Lake City — and it’s killing people
The following story was written and researched by Ryan Trimble for the Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with The Salt Lake Tribune. When David Shay began smoking spice, he believed he was choosing a safe, legal alternative to marijuana. “I wasn’t able to smoke marijuana because of drug tests at my job,” he says,...
Former Daggett County jail inmates tortured by police say they hope their lawsuit will bring change to how prisoners are treated
This article was written by Rone Tempest of The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with The Salt Lake Tribune. In a case that challenges the Utah Department of Corrections policy of farming out 20 percent of its inmates to remote county jails, the American Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday filed a federal civil rights...
FBI confirms ongoing investigation into former UTA boardmembers in order to protect records
The Utah Investigative Journalism Project was denied access to a 2012 report on the actions of former Utah Transit Authority board members by a state panel Thursday. The report, compiled by Utah attorney general’s office investigators delved into allegations of insider dealings that have dogged former UTA board member and developer Terry Diehl since the...
‘Scared all the time’: Former Daggett inmates describe abuse at the hands of jail officers
The following story was written and researched by Rone Tempest for The Utah Investigative Journalism Project in partnership with The Salt Lake Tribune. Dustin Porter said he has recurring nightmares of the attack dog that lunged at him in a slippery jail hallway: “I’ll wake up right before he bites me.” Josh Olsen said he...