A woman who found her murdered mother’s bloody body when she was just four years old has recalled how she enlisted a high school friend to solve the brutal crime more than 40 years later.
Loretta Jones, 23, had been repeatedly stabbed and sexually assaulted in her Price, Utah home but managed to write her killer’s name in blood before her daughter Heidi Jones-Asay woke up and discovered her dead on July 30, 1970.
‘When I got up, I looked through the keyhole into the front room and when I opened the door, there was blood everywhere. It was my mom’s lifeless body,’ Jones-Asay recalled on a recent episode of the Oxygen true-crime series Exhumed.
Scroll down for video
Looking back: Heidi Jones-Asay detailed how she found her mother Loretta Jones’ dead body on July 30, 1970 during her appearance on the Oxygen true-crime series Exhumed
Horrific: Jones had been stabbed 17 times and sexually assaulted in her Price, Utah home when her four-year-old daughter discovered her lifeless body
A neighbor called the police, and when they arrived on the scene, they noted that there were no signs of forced entry, suggesting that Jones had known her attacker.
‘Jones had 17 stab wounds,’ Sgt. David Brewer with the Carbon County Sheriff’s Office told producers. ‘A lot of rage went in on this one.’
Despite the gruesome attack, Jones-Asay told police officers that she didn’t hear her mother screaming or struggling the night of the murder. Investigators also noticed that Jones hardly had any defensive wounds.
‘I believe Loretta stayed quiet to protect her own child because she was afraid her daughter would run out and get hurt as well,’ Brewer explained.
A medical examiner concluded that Jones was killed with a small, narrow knife. There was also semen on her, but DNA testing was still in its early stages at the time, and they couldn’t find a match.
Clue: Police noted that there were no signs of forced entry, suggesting that Jones had known her killer
Huh? Jones-Asay told police officers that she didn’t hear her mother screaming or struggling the night of the murder. Investigators also noticed that Jones hardly had any defensive wounds
Doting mom: It is believed that Jones stayed quiet during the attack to protect her daughter from running out and getting hurt
Without any viable evidence at the crime scene, the only lead they had at the time was that a man tried to kidnap 10-year-old Lori Kulow Fennel on the same day as the murder.
Kulow Fennel, who lived by Jones, was playing outside when a man grabbed her and tried to abduct her, but her loud screams scared him away.
Jones-Asay also started talking about the night of the murder more and told her grandmother that she heard a man in their house threatening to kill her mother. She thought the voice belonged to her mom’s friend ‘Tom.’
When trying to figure out who ‘Tom’ was, investigators went through Jones’ diaries. They found one Tom — Tom Egley — whom she dated for about two months.
Egley told police that he spent the day of Jones’ murder in town, saying he had drinks, ate a hamburger, and went window shopping. While a bar owner confirmed she saw him that night, she noted that he had red spots all over his shirt.
Kulow Fennel also identified Egley out of a lineup as the man who tried to abduct her that fateful day.
Lead: Jones-Asay heard a man threaten to kill her mom that night and thought it was Jones’ friend Tom Egley, who also tried to kidnap a 10-year-old girl on the day of the murder
Hope: The case went unsolved for decades until Jones-Asay enlisted the help of her high school friend David Brewer who works with the Carbon County Sheriff
‘They said, “Is this the guy?” I felt like was about throw up,’ Kulow Fennel recalled on the show.
Egley was charged with the attempted kidnapping, but there was no evidence in his home or the crime scene connecting him to Jones’ murder. He spent just 90 days in prison and Jones’ case went unsolved.
Decades went by without any new leads, but Jones-Asay never stopped trying to find her mother’s killer.
‘If I could keep the conversation alive about my mom, then maybe I could help get her case solved,’ she said.
In 2009, Jones-Asay reconnected with Brewer on social media and learned her former high school friend was working with the Carbon County Sheriff. She purposely ran into him at a local arts festival to talk to him about her mom’s cold case.
‘I was kind of taken aback because knowing her in high school, I never knew that story,’ Brewer recalled. ‘I was a fairly fresh detective at the time. I had never worked a cold case, and I had never actually done a homicide yet.
Suspicious: Brewer decided to exhume Jones’ body to look for evident after an interview with Egley convinced him that he was the killer
Doing it: ‘If there’s just a one per cent chance that we find physical evidence, it would be worth the effort,’ Wally Hendricks, a detective with Carbon County Sheriff’s Office
‘Heidi came in and she told me the details that she was aware of in the case. Heidi, her passion behind it and still crying after 39 years… She wanted her mom’s case solved, and I owed it to her to do it.’
However, the odds were stacked against him. The crime files had been lost, leaving him with only past media coverage, Jones-Asay’s memory of that night, and a photo of her at the crime scene that showed a blood-soaked carpet.
‘That picture kind of set me back a little because why are they taking a picture of her where her mom died?’ he said. ‘But this picture is the only crime scene photo we have.’
Brewer managed to track down Egley’s then-girlfriend who revealed that he had come home late the night of the murder and immediately took a bath with all of his clothes on. He went to the laundromat the next day and was missing several clothing items when returned.
The officer found Egley living Rocky Ford, Colorado. The case’s only suspect strangely claimed he couldn’t remember the name of his old girlfriend who had been murdered. However, he was able to tell Brewer what he did and even ate that day.
Decades: Jones’ body was exhumed in July 2016 — 46 years after it was buried
Disappointment: Investigators discovered that Jones’ coffin had collapsed while underground and there was too much water damage to swab for evidence
Working an angle: However, they had heavily publicized the exhumation and claimed they were excited about the results as an attempt to scare Egley into giving himself away
Brewer was convinced that Egley was the killer, but he didn’t have any concrete evidence that would convict him.
In July 2016, he asked Jones-Asay if they could exhume her mother’s body to see if there was any evidence that was left behind.
‘I said, “Get me a shovel. I’ll help dig,”‘ Jones-Asay recalled. ‘I was willing to do whatever needed to be done to get my mom’s case solved.’
After more than 40 years, investigators hoped Jones’ remains were well-enough preserved that they could swab underneath her fingernails for forensic evidence.
‘If there’s just a one per cent chance that we find physical evidence, it would be worth the effort,’ Wally Hendricks, a detective with Carbon County Sheriff’s Office, told producers.
However, much to their dismay, the coffin had collapsed while underground and there was too much water damage to swab for evidence.
Investigators had heavily publicized the exhumation and claimed they were excited about the results as an attempt to scare Egley into giving himself away.
Big break: Egley’s neighbor Lisa Carter offered to wear a wire and spent weeks talking to him
Incredible: Carter not only got Egley to confess, but she also convinced him to go to the police. Egley was arrested on August 2016, more than four decades after the murder
Justice: Egley was found guilty of murder in October 2016 and sentenced to 10 years to life in prison
They got their first big lead when a woman named Linda who had lived with Jones’ parents as a college student came forward and told the police that Jones had written her murderer’s name in blood at the crime scene.
While reexamining their only crime scene photo, Brewer said he could see a ‘T’ and an ‘O’ in the bloodstain. Once again, all signs pointed to Egley, but the case might have remained cold if it wasn’t for the killer’s neighbor Lisa Carter.
Carter contacted the police and offered to wear a wire while trying to get a confession out of Egley. She spent weeks talking to him, telling him that police had found evidence from the exhumation.
The unlikely strategy worked and Egley confessed to the murder. He claimed they had consensual sex but snapped when they got into a fight. Carter convinced him to turn himself in to the police, and he did.
Egley was arrested on August 2016 — 46 years after he had murdered Jones. He took a plea deal and plead guilty to Jones’ murder in exchange for the rape charge being dropped.
He was found guilty in October 2016 and was sentenced to 10 years to life in prison, but Jones-Asay has vowed that she will make sure he is never freed.
‘If Tom is ever eligible for parole, I will be at the parole hearing to make sure he never walks as a free man again,’ she said at the hearing, Deseret News reported at the time.
This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk
ncG1vNJzZmhqZGy7psPSmqmorZ6Zwamx1qippZxemLyue8KroKadX6y8rq3NZqmem5GhubR5xaKlnaGenHquwdGdnKudlGK6sMDHnqmsZZKksbp5wK1kmp%2BVYrOwwdFo