SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, April 5, 2023 (Gephardt Daily) — Court documents reveal more details of the Tuesday arrest of a man after he reportedly told family members in Utah County that he had strangled his wife Sunday at the couple’s Salt Lake City apartment.
Relatives of suspect Larry Edward Johnson, 63, called the Pleasant Grove Police Department, which then notified Salt Lake City police, who found the body of 71-year-old Victoria Johnson.
Larry Johnson was arrested Tuesday, and faces charges of:
- Murder, a first-degree felony
- Obstruction of justice, a second-degree felony
The body was found when SLCPD officers did a welfare check at the Wasatch Manor Apartment Complex, 535 S. 200 East.
Officers responded and “located a deceased female with injuries consistent to that of an assault and strangulation,” Johnson’s charging documents say. “Pleasant Grove PD took the A/P (arrested party) into custody and Salt Lake City detectives responded and transported the A/P to the Salt Lake City Public Safety Building for an interview.”
Charging documents say Johnson told police, post Miranda, that he was “diagnosed as bipolar and has not been taking his medications for several months. The A/P (arrested party) stated that he ‘lost the ability to protect his wife’ and that he repeatedly struck his wife while she was sitting in her chair and then strangled her to death.”
Evidence from the scene and from interviews with Johnson’s neighbors revealed that the suspect had taken “multiple trips to the garbage over the last few days and throughout the last couple of nights; dresser drawers inside the apartment are found to be mostly empty, closets mostly empty, witnesses describing the A/P dumping silverware down the garbage shoot. The A/P has demonstrated that he has altered the scene from it’s original state after the decedent had died.”
The affidavit also says “The A/P stated that he was hearing voices and the A/P should be considered a danger to the public while in this current mental state.”
