After 36 Years, Utah Set to Execute Murderer

Utah is preparing to execute Ralph Leroy Menzies for the 1986 robbery and murder of Maurine Hunsaker. Scott Pierce of the Salt Lake City Tribune reports that after decades of appeals, Menzies has run out of further opportunities to delay his execution. This morning the Utah Attorney General asked a District Court Judge to sign an order for Menzies’ execution by firing squad. While that method of execution was Menzies choice, in December he and three other condemned murderers claimed that it was cruel and unusual punishment which violates the Eighth Amendment. That claim was rejected. It would be the first time a murderer has been executed in Utah since 2010.

Facts published in the September 23, 2014, decision upholding Menzies conviction and death sentence by a unanimous Utah Supreme Court, describe the brutal and cold-blooded murder of a 26-year-old mother of three. Mrs. Hunsaker was kidnapped on the evening of February 23, 1986, from a gas station where she worked. When she did not return her husband’s phone calls, he contacted the police. About an hour later Mrs. Hunsaker called her husband at their home telling him that she had been kidnapped and robbed, but that the kidnapper would set her free later that evening or the next morning. Then the line went dead. Two days later, a hiker found her body in the picnic area of a wooded park. She had been strangled and her throat had been slit. Evidence found by police indicated that she had been tied to a tree before being murdered. While police were investigating, Menzies was jailed for an unrelated burglary. Guards found Mrs. Hunsaker’s identification with his belongings. Substantial evidence convinced the jury of Menzies’ guilt, including the victim’s fingerprints on Menzies car, witnesses who observed Menzies lead the victim into the park the morning after she was kidnapped, then heard a woman scream a short time later.  After his conviction Menzies requested a bench trial for the penalty phase. The Judge sentenced him to death.  $116 was stolen from the gas station cashbox the night Mrs. Hunsager was kidnapped. That’s how much her life was worth to the murderer.