TOOELE, Utah, March 14, 2024 (Gephardt Daily) — Court documents illuminate the brutal nature of the Feb. 16 homicide of a Tooele man leading to the arrest of his 9-year-old son.
Tooele police were initially called to an apparent attempted suicide the night of Feb. 16 in the area of 400 W Millcreek Way.
They found instead a 32-year-old man with a single gunshot wound to the back of the head and defensive wounds on his head, face, hands and arms, according to an affidavit for a Mar. 7 search warrant for the residence. Transported to a hospital, the man died the next morning.
Eight people were in the home at the time, the victim and the 9-year-old, plus two adult roommates and their four young children. The victim and his son had gone to bed early in a room they shared for what the court papers described as behavioral problems.
“The victim’s son later emerged from the room and said that his dad was bleeding from from the head and was dead.” All involved parties said that the victim was alone in the bedroom with his son, according to the affidavit.
A handgun was found under the victim’s bed as well as a tomahawk-style hatchet covered in blood. “The particularly gruesome, violent and specific methods used in the assault (i.e. single shot to to the head, followed up with tomahawk strikes) appear inconsistent with the age of the suspect and actions typically taken or even known about by children of a similar age.”
The 9-year-old was an active online game-player, the affidavit said, and the weapons used mirror one of his preferred games “Modern Warfare: Warzone.”
The warrants seek a smartphone and a tablet police believe will “shed light on how and/or why these specific methods and weapons were used in the homicide.”
