Jury deliberating life or death for Douglas Lovell


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OGDEN — There is no question that Douglas Lovell murdered a South Ogden woman in 1985 to prevent her from testifying in court that he had brutally raped her.

What a jury began deliberating Tuesday afternoon is whether Lovell should pay for those crimes with his life.

"Make no mistake about it, the state is going to ask you for a verdict of death," deputy Weber County attorney Christopher Shaw told jurors during closing arguments at the end of the four-week trial that included a penalty phase hearing.

"The worst of the worst is seated among us," Shaw said, pointing a finger at Lovell.

"There can be no closure when your loved one is brutally and savagely taken from you forever," Shaw said. "What there can be is a just and appropriate penalty, a just and appropriate punishment, and that, in this case is a verdict of death."

Now 57, Lovell pleaded guilty in 1993 to killing Joyce Yost, 39, in 1985 to keep her from testifying that he had kidnapped and raped her. At the time he pleaded guilty, he was serving a sentence at the Utah State Prison for raping Yost, based on transcripts from Yost's testimony during a preliminary hearing.

Lovell's plea was part of a deal to keep him off death row, provided he led police to Yost's body, which he said he buried in a shallow grave in Ogden Canyon.

Yost's body was never found, and a 2nd District judge sentenced Lovell to death. But in 2010, the Utah Supreme Court allowed Lovell to withdraw his plea.

The nine-man, three-woman jury has two options: sending Lovell back to death row or giving him a sentence of life in prison. Because a life sentence without parole was not a legal option when Yost was murdered in 1985, anything other than a death penalty would include a possibility of parole, however unlikely that parole would be.

Shaw said Tuesday that the arguments against putting Lovell to death were like small drops in a sea of evidence showing why he should die for his crimes, including uncharged crimes and years of criminal activity by a cold and calculating man.

Defense attorneys made it clear throughout the trial that Lovell committed the crimes against Yost, but insisted that he should not die for them.

While prosecutors believe Lovell was unwilling to reveal where Yost's body was buried, defense attorney Michael Bouwhuis pointed toward possible mistakes by investigators who used backhoes and shovels to look for the body rather than a more careful process of searching for her remains.


There can be no closure when your loved one is brutally and savagely taken from you forever. What there can be is a just and appropriate penalty, a just and appropriate punishment, and that, in this case is a verdict of death.

–Christopher Shaw, deputy Weber County attorney


“Doug Lovell has the greatest incentive of anybody to lead them to the right place," Bouwhuis said. "Clearly, he still doesn't want to die. … Can you blame a person for not wanting to die, regardless of what he did?"

Bouwhuis asked the jury to consider the experiences and influences in Lovell's life, starting with an unstable family with a mentally ill mother and an absent father who eventually divorced. From that home, Lovell's oldest brother "made it out" and had a successful life, a middle brother died of a drug overdose and Lovell began his life of crime.

While a broken home and a series of head injuries didn't cause Lovell to rape and kill Yost, Bouwhuis said, they are factors that "have an impact" and cannot be discounted.

Bouwhuis described 30 well-behaved years behind bars, which led to an improvement in Lovell's cognitive abilities. During that time Lovell has provided service, cared for other inmates, assisted guards and kept his record clean. The risk is low that he would ever re-offend, the attorney said.

He also pointed to the wide gap in punishment for Lovell ex-wife and co-conspirator in the murder, Rhonda Butters, who was granted immunity in the case in 1991 when she agreed to visit Lovell in prison and secretly tape a confession from him.

That transcript was often quoted by prosecutors throughout the trial.

"I committed a first-degree felony to cover another felony," Lovell said in the recording. "It's the death penalty. At the very least, they're going to give me life without parole, if I cooperate with them, and go with them."

In those tapes, Lovell also said he regretted killing Yost and had hopes of turning his life around, Bouwhuis said.

Butters was aware of the plans Lovell made when he asked two different men to kill Lovell. She drove him to Yost's house after he decided to kill her himself. When Butters picked him up in the morning, she drove him across county lines as they burned and hid evidence.

In the end, no amount of finger-pointing can lift the blame from Lovell, Shaw said. However, the criminal justice system ultimately failed Yost, both in her death and the years that have passed since then, he said.

"Don't let that happen again," Shaw told the jury before they were dismissed to deliberate. "Render a just verdict, ladies and gentlemen."

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