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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — More than 40 years after a young girl found her mother stabbed to death, police in eastern Utah say they're finally zeroing in on a suspect in the case.
Investigators uncovered new evidence against a long-ago suspect in the killing of Loretta Jones, 23, in the town of Price, Carbon County Sheriff's Sgt. David Brewer said. They have turned over the case to prosecutors for possible charges.
Investigators recently exhumed Jones' body looking for clues and talked to witnesses who knew about what happened. They haven't released the suspect's name.
"New evidence in this case is by the truckload," Brewer said. "Witnesses who really didn't come forward then came forward now."
Jones was sexually assaulted and stabbed 17 times in the front room of the home she shared with her daughter in the summer of 1970.
Heidi Jones-Asay, now 50, remembered peering through a keyhole, then walking into the room and seeing blood everywhere.
"I just don't want anyone to forget what happened to my mom," she said.
Her mother loved music and wore a shade of lipstick called Pony Pink. Jones-Asay recalls going for ice cream and pretending to iron her clothes with a toy iron alongside her mother.
"I remember her just being beautiful and tall and smelling good," she said. "She was my mommy."
Jones-Asay was raised by her grandmother and moved away as an adult. When she returned to Utah, she was determined to help get her mother's case solved.
Brewer said he started investigating the case about seven years ago after running into Jones-Asay, an old high school classmate, at a festival. They chatted, and after learning Brewer was a police officer, Jones-Asay called his office the next day.
He got to work on the case, and last month investigators exhumed Jones' body to gather possible DNA evidence.
It wasn't done sooner because Jones' mother was against the idea. After she died, Jones-Asay approved the request.
While material gathered from the exhumation is still being tested, Brewer said new witness testimony amounted to enough evidence to forward the case to prosecutors.
In the meantime, Jones-Asay is making a home for herself in Helper, not far from the house she shared with her mother in Price. She got married last year and now has her mother's beloved stereo in her home.
"I'm doing everything to keep my mom's memory alive and her love around me," she said.
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