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LOGAN — The killing of a 17-year-old Logan High School senior from 1965 has now been officially solved, according to police.
Logan police announced Wednesday — on the 59th anniversary of the death of Tanya Kay Weber — the cold case homicide had been solved.
"The Logan Police Department has been in contact with Tanya's family throughout this process and hopes this information provides them closure. Logan police would like to thank all those who assisted with this case, especially the officers and detectives from 1965 and the relentless work they showed in the initial days and weeks following this homicide," the department said in a statement Wednesday.
On June 26, 1965, Tanya's body was found on West Center Street in Logan. Her partially nude body was found "strangled less than two blocks from her home" and "had been hidden in bushes at a neighbor's house," according to the Utah Bureau of Criminal Identification's cold case website.
Owen Hodges Kimball, 26, who lived near Tanya, was immediately identified as a possible suspect. But just four days later, on June 30, 1965, he was found deceased in his vehicle in Logan Canyon. His death was ruled to be a suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning.
On July 10, 1965, Cache County Attorney B.H. Harris issued a statement, declaring: "As far as this case is concerned there has been no evidence submitted to this office directly indicating there are any prime suspects subject to this prosecution."
In 2022, the cold case was reopened by Logan police and Tanya's clothing was taken to the Utah State Crime Lab for DNA analysis. Because several male DNA profiles were found, investigators obtained permission to exhume Kimball's body on Nov. 2, 2023, according to police.
"Both the Utah State Crime Lab and the lab at Bode Technology Group in Lorton, Virginia, conducted DNA testing on the collected samples. Investigators compared the DNA profile from Kimball to the DNA mixture found on Ms. Weber's clothing. Investigators discovered DNA from Kimball on an article of clothing worn by Ms. Weber at the time of her death," Logan police said Wednesday.
Cache County Attorney Taylor Sorensen recently reviewed the DNA evidence and numerous statements and other pieces of evidence collected since 1965 and concluded that Kimball "did in fact kill Ms. Tanya Weber and this evidence would be sufficient to obtain a verdict beyond a reasonable doubt."
