Cold Cases in Utah
ColdCaseIndex documents 9 cases in Utah, dated 1985 to 2023. 3 are recorded as unsolved. The earliest is Steve Christensen & Kathy Sheets (1985) and the most recent is Ruby Franke Children (2023).
- Unsolved 3 (33%)
- Partly resolved 1 (11%)
- Solved or convicted 5 (56%)
Homicide clearance in Utah, 1965 to 2024
A homicide is "cleared" when police make an arrest or close it by exceptional means, so an uncleared case is not always an unsolved one. Source: Murder Accountability Project analysis of FBI Uniform Crime Report data, as published by Project: Cold Case. These are statewide totals and are separate from the ColdCaseIndex entries listed below.
By type
All Utah cases
Ruby Franke Children
Parenting YouTuber Ruby Franke and her business partner, counselor Jodi Hildebrandt, each pleaded guilty in December 2023 to four counts of aggravated child abuse of two of Franke's children.
Eric Richins
Eric Richins, 39, died of a fentanyl overdose at his home in Kamas, Utah on March 4, 2022. His wife Kouri Richins, who later published a children's book about grief, was convicted of aggravated murder in March 2026 and sentenced…
Macin Smith
Seventeen-year-old Macin Smith left his family's home in St. George, Utah, on the morning of September 1, 2015, and did not arrive at Desert Hills High School.
Susan Powell
Susan Powell vanished from her West Valley City, Utah home while her husband Josh claimed to have taken their two young sons camping at night in freezing temperatures.
Lori Hacking
Lori Hacking, 27, was shot at her Salt Lake City apartment on July 19, 2004 by her husband, Mark Hacking, who reported her missing the same morning. He had invented a college degree and a medical school place.
Elizabeth Smart
Fourteen-year-old Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her Salt Lake City bedroom by Brian David Mitchell and his wife. She was held captive for nine months, often in plain sight. She was rescued after being recognized in public.
Kiplyn Davis
Kiplyn Davis, 15, vanished from her Spanish Fork, Utah high school in 1995. Several classmates were later convicted of perjury for lying about her disappearance, and one, Timmy Olsen, was convicted of manslaughter in 2011, but…
Sheree Warren
Sheree Warren, a 25-year-old credit union employee and mother from Roy, Utah, vanished on October 2, 1985, after leaving her workplace in Salt Lake City, telling a coworker she planned to meet her estranged husband at a nearby…
Steve Christensen & Kathy Sheets
Steven Christensen and Kathleen Sheets were killed by package pipe bombs in the Salt Lake City area on October 15, 1985. Document dealer Mark Hofmann, injured the next day when a third bomb exploded in his car, pleaded guilty in…