Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
VERNAL — A Uintah County man who killed an acquaintance while out on bail in an unrelated rape case has received a lengthy prison sentence that could keep him behind bars for the rest of his life.
A jury found Jesse Anthony Saenz guilty of murder, theft, and possession of a firearm by a restricted person in August.
On Tuesday, Judge Clark McClellan sentenced Saenz to serve 15 years to life in prison for killing Elvis Zachary Olsen. McClellan also imposed prison terms of one-to-15 years for the theft and weapons possession convictions. All of three sentences will run consecutive to one another.
Saenz, 25, shot Olsen in the face, chest and arm on April 21, 2013, and left him dead in a field of tall, yellow grass 100 feet from the home where Saenz's grandfather lived, according to testimony given during the trial.
The two men met while they were serving time in the Uintah County Jail. Text messages between the pair on the day of the shooting showed that Olsen, 22, agreed to give Saenz a ride to his grandfather's house in Fort Duchesne. Saenz's grandfather was out of town at the time.
Prosecutors presented evidence during the trial that showed a .44 magnum revolver was missing from the grandfather's home when it was searched shortly after Olsen's body was found. The same gun was found when Saenz was arrested the following day in Arizona while driving Olsen's car.
At the time of Olsen's death, Saenz was out on bail, awaiting trial for raping a Vernal woman.
Four months after the murder, he admitted in 8th District Court that he followed the woman off a shuttle bus in the summer of 2012 and brutally attacked her. He pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual assault and was sentenced to serve 15 years to life in prison.
At Tuesday's sentencing hearing, the judge ordered the prison terms in the murder and sexual assault cases to run consecutively with each other as well.
