A former South Ogden police detective told the "Cold" podcast he believes Douglas Lovell might also have played a role in the unsolved disappearance of another Weber County woman, Sheree Warren.
SALT LAKE CITY South Ogden police Sgt. Terry Carpenter served Douglas Lovell with a court summons for criminal charges on May 14, 1992. Lovell, who was at that time incarcerated for sexually assaulting Joyce Yost in April of 1985, was at last being accused of murdering Yost to prevent her from testifying against him.
An audio recording of the encounter, which was made without Lovell s knowledge, is featured in the eighth episode of the KSL investigative podcast series Cold s second season. The recording has not previously been publicly released. So you re saying they ve found Joyce Yost, Lovell asked Carpenter in the recording.
Police had not, in fact, located Yost s body but they had developed enough evidence that the Weber County Attorney s Office had taken the rare step of filing a charge of capital murder against Lovell in a no-body case.
A former South Ogden police detective who for years led the investigation into the August, 1985 disappearance of Joyce Yost said he believes Douglas Lovell, the man ultimately charged with and convicted of capital murder for killing Yost, might also have played a role in the unsolved disappearance of another Weber County woman.
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The Right Fork South Fork Ogden River cuts through sediment below the high water mark of Causey Reservoir on September 20, 2014. Photo: Dave Cawley, KSL Podcasts
A man with a distinctive stammer phoned police 34 years ago and claimed to have found a body in the mountains near Causey, a reservoir on the South Fork of the Ogden River.
“I didn’t touch the body or anything because I didn’t want to get fingerprints on it, OK,” the man told a dispatcher, “but I noticed there was a purse there.”
The man refused to identify himself or provide more specific information about where police might find the body, saying only that it was 2 to 3 miles back from the reservoir. The man hung up when a Weber County dispatcher told him she needed to put him in touch with an investigator.
SOUTH OGDEN An audio recording that captured a killer s unwitting confession and broke open a murder case after years of inaction is coming to light in the latest episode of the KSL podcast Cold.
The recording was the pivotal piece of evidence that confirmed what police had believed for years, but which they d been unable to prove: Douglas Lovell had murdered Joyce Yost to prevent her from testifying against him in a 1985 sexual assault case. I committed a first-degree felony to cover another felony. It s the death penalty, Lovell said on the recording.
Only a few snippets of the recording have previously been shared publicly, presented as evidence in court to establish Lovell s guilt. Those clips clearly showed Lovell understood the gravity of what he d done, as well as the consequences if he were to be convicted.