Missing woman's body found, man arrested in Cache County


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LOGAN — Police found the body of a woman reported missing in Cache County last month and arrested a man in connection with her death, police said Saturday.

Merrilee Cox-Lafferty, 37, was reported missing on Aug. 21. She had last been seen leaving Logan in a 1999 tan Toyota Camry three days earlier, police said at the time.

Police investigated for several weeks then ruled the case a homicide. Cox-Lafferty's body was found in Cache County, according to a press release on Saturday. Officials recovered her body about eight miles off the road in Blacksmith Fork Canyon, Cache County Sheriff Chad Jensen said.

Police arrested Stacey Robert Willis, 41, of Hyrum, Friday night and booked him into the Cache County Jail for investigation of several things, including aggravated murder, obstruction of justice, and possession of a dangerous weapon by a restricted person.

The discovery of Cox-Lafferty's dog provided a momentum boost that broke open the case for investigators, Logan Police Chief Gary Jensen said.

"The dog was pivotal," he said at a Saturday morning press conference. "It offered us some info that we just simply didn’t have."

He did not go into specifics about how the dog's discovery assisted investigators.

Cox-Lafferty had been in Utah to help a friend move, Chad Jensen said. She and Willis were not strangers, he added.

Several search warrants were served in Cache County and in Idaho in relation to the case, police said. Cox-Lafferty's car was recovered in Boise, Idaho, Gary Jensen said.

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Linda Williams is KSL.com's early morning web producer. She joined KSL.com after many years at KSL TV. Linda graduated with a communications degree from Brigham Young University and now calls Idaho home.

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