Cities     Salt Lake City

Salt Lake City First-Degree Murder, First-Degree Felony Manslaughter, Second-Degree Felony Manslaughter, Aggravated Robbery (3 counts), Second-Degree Felony Attempted Aggravated Robbery (2 counts), Attempted Robbery (2 counts) and Attempted Burglary        Darla "Chata" Woundedhead, who was seven months pregnant, was in a Salt Lake City motel on August 18, 2005, smoking meth with her friends Jessica Lawrence and Salvatore Brito.        Todd C. Allen, Robert Everett Collins and Lawrence Clinton Valdez forced their way into the motel room, intending to rob Darla, Lawrence and Brito of their drugs and money. The three men beat Brito so badly that he slipped in and out of consciousness. Then one of the attackers shot Darla in the chest at close range with a shotgun. The three robbers left the room, and Valdez told the others "Kill these (expletive)." Earl Hall, who had rented the room next door, retrieved his gun and exchanged fire with the three robbers. Allen was shot in the buttocks and taken to a hospital.        Darla was rushed to LDS Hospital, where her premature baby, named Darla after her, was delivered in a permanently comatose state with drugs in her system. Darla died shortly after her baby was delivered.        Manny Garcia was in on the planning of the crime.        Witness Willie Bates testified that he had gotten a ride from the defendants, and Kerri Dawn Armant was discussing arranging a robbery and avenging an attempted rape of one of her friends earlier in the day. But when the men began putting bandannas on their faces in the car parked outside the motel, Bates had had enough and left the scene.        Jeremy Smith, who occupied the same cell as Collins, testified that "He [Collins] told me he did it. He told me he shot Darla Woundedhead. He didn't mean to shoot her. Somebody came out, starting firing shots and he shot back."        Allen, Collins, Garcia, Valdez and Kerri Dawn Armant were each charged with first-degree felony murder and two counts of aggravated robbery.        A jury found Collins guilty of first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated robbery, and sentenced him to thirty years in prison. Andrea Martinez pleaded guilty to one count of attempted burglary and two counts of attempted robbery. Todd Allen pleaded guilty to first-degree felony manslaughter and second-degree felony attempted aggravated robbery and was sentenced to two to twenty years in prison. Valdez pleaded guilty to second-degree felony manslaughter and second-degree felony attempted aggravated robbery, and was sentenced to two to twenty years in prison. References:  Linda Thomson and Ben Winslow. "4 to Face Trial in Shooting of Pregnant Woman." Deseret Morning News, February 11, 2006; Linda Thomson. "'05 Murder Case Nears Resolution." Deseret Morning News, November 14, 2006. Capital Murder (2 counts) [Farmington]        On January 15, 2001, Roger Martin MacGuire murdered his pregnant ex-wife Susan at the Layton insurance office where she worked. MacGuire had learned that his ex-wife was pregnant by her new boyfriend and that they were planning to wed. The morning of the slaying, the defendant told a co-worker he was going to kill his ex-wife. Soon after, MacGuire went to her office, where she picked up the phone and threatened to call the police. MacGuire later told police he "lost it." He went to his car and retrieved a newly purchased .380-caliber handgun, then returned to the office and started shooting. Susan MacGuire was struck in the back of the head, the left arm and the abdomen.        Macguire told police he meant only to frighten Susan, and claimed the gun "just went off."        Davis County Attorney Melvin Wilson said that the number of shots fired and their location — two struck Susan in the abdomen — show MacGuire's intent to kill both Susan and her preborn child.        Following the shooting, MacGuire confessed to a friend, who accompanied MacGuire to the Riverdale Police Department.        Flagging down an officer in the parking lot, MacGuire blurted: "I just killed my wife."        On January 7, 2002, Macguire tried to escape double homicide charges by arguing that the preborn child he shot was not yet able to survive outside the womb and thus was not a "person" under the law. But State Judge Michael Allphin said the 1983 law which deems the slaying of an "unborn child" murder applies also to children in the womb who are not yet viable. Judge Allphin agreed with prosecutors that the definition of a "person" in reproductive rights cases is not relevant in a criminal context. He said that "Reproductive rights cases are simply inapplicable to restrict the state's interest in protecting unborn life."        Charged with two counts of capital murder, Myers avoided a possible death-penalty conviction by pleading guilty to a single count of capital murder. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. References:  "Utah Judge Rules Slaying of "Unborn Child" is Murder Even Before Viability." Lifesite Daily News at http://www.lifesite.net, January 8, 2002; "Utah Judge Rules on Fetal Murder." Associated Press, January 8, 2002. Capital Murder        On December 3, 1994, Calvin Shane Myers, his pregnant ex-girlfriend, Irene Christensen, and another man, Steven Paul Howard, were driving toward Park City shortly after midnight in heavy snow. They came upon an unplowed road, and the three got out and walked toward Rockport Reservoir State Park. Myers and Christensen embraced, and then Myers stabbed her at least 12 times with a rusty 4½-inch hunting blade. The two men then left the area, leaving Christensen in a snowbank. Her frozen body was found by a snowmobiler two weeks later.        An autopsy of Christensen's baby showed a 16- to 18-week-old male preborn child. A state medical examiner testified that the child was alive immediately prior to Christensen's death, and died because she died.        Myers confessed to the crime and was charged with two counts of murder. In February 1996, pled guilty to one count of capital murder. In exchange, Summit County prosecutors dismissed the second murder charge and agreed to a sentence of life in prison instead of the death penalty.        For a person to be charged with capital murder under Utah law, there must be an aggravating factor in addition to the underlying murder. Myers was charged under the provision that allows capital murder charges if the murder was committed as part of one "criminal episode during which two or more persons were killed." References:  Angie Welling. "Is Threat of Death Penalty Misused?" Deseret Morning News, November 30, 2003; Elizabeth Neff. "Killer Says He Got Bad Legal Advice." The Salt Lake Tribune, December 5, 2003. Aggravated Murder        On July 19, 2004, Mark Hacking reported to authorities that his wife Lori was missing after failing to return from a morning jog. She was five weeks pregnant.        Nearly three months later, Lori's badly decomposed body was found in a local landfill. She had been shot in the head. Mark Hacking confessed to his brothers that he had shot her and dumped her body into a trash container.        On August 2, 2004, Mark Hacking was arrested and charged with aggravated murder. Salt Lake City Police Chief Rick Dinse said that "We believe that Mark Hacking is responsible for her disappearance and her death."        On April 15, 2005, Hacking admitted to Third District Judge Denise Lindberg that he had murdered his wife.        The Hackings were preparing to move to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, so that Mark Hacking could attend medical school at the University of North Carolina. However, the university said that it had no record that he had ever applied for admission. Additionally, his wife believed that he had graduated from the University of Utah, although he never had. Lori had learned of these deceptions only three days before she was murdered. References:  Amelia Neufeld and Scott Gold. "Husband Arrested in Pregnant Wife's Disappearance." The Los Angeles Times, August 2, 2004; "Claim of Early Pregnancy Adds Legal Twist to Hacking Saga." KUTV Television 2 [Salt Lake City, Utah], August 6, 2004; Charles Montaldo. "The Mark Hacking Case: Background and the Latest Developments." From http://crime.about.com/od/current/a/hacking.htm; The Court TV Crime Library. "Mark Hacking: Death in the Family: Guilty" (Part 10). Downloaded from http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious. To return to the introductory document, click here. To go to the Index for the pro-abortion violence database, click here. This document was updated on December 1, 2007.