LINCOLN, Wyo., May 17, 2017 (Gephardt Daily) — A year to the day after his victim’s body was found, Dereck James “D.J.” Harrison has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in the death of Kay Ricks, a Utah Transit Authority employee who was kidnapped and whose body was dumped in a remote area of Wyoming.
In March, Harrison, 23, agreed to plead guilty and provide testimony in the crime in exchange for taking the death penalty off the table.
Harrison blamed his father, Flint Wayne Harrison, for the May 2016 murder, and said the original plan had been to release Ricks, a 63-year-old father and grandfather. Ricks was taken May 12 from UTA’s Ballpark Station, north of downtown Salt Lake City, because the Harrisons wanted his UTA utility truck.
It was 51-year-old Flint Harrison who later slit Ricks’ throat then beat him with a metal pipe for nearly 20 minutes, the younger Harrison told prosecutors. Ricks’ body was found on May 17, 2016, near Kemmerer, Wyo.
Flint Harrison committed suicide on July 25 of last year while awaiting trial in the Davis County Jail on charges related to an earlier crime, the May 10, 2016 kidnapping and attack in Centerville on a mother and her four daughters, whom the Harrisons had invited to a barbecue as a ruse.
The mother and daughters escaped and alerted police. The Harrisons were fleeing the area after that crime when they came upon Ricks and his UTA utility truck.
Ricks’ family did not attend the sentencing, but submitted letters to the court offering their forgiveness to Harrison.
D.J. Harrison had also taken a plea deal in the Centerville case, pleading guilty to five counts of aggravated kidnapping in exchange for prosecutors dropping 11 other charges related to the assault, and to weapons and drugs charges.
There should be no mercy for this animal. Ever.