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Alex Cabrero and Marc Giauque reporting Investigators got help solving a riverbank murder mystery.
Police arrested the victim's husband in connection with a woman's body found in the Jordan River two days ago. Investigators say her husband killed her then dumped her body.
Police told us some people identified the woman and told investigators she had a husband. Police also had a strange phone call last weekend talking about a woman being thrown into the river. Once those clues were put together, police say they had their man.
There are many things 40-year-old Donna Toland's friends want people to know about her. "She always smiled. She has cute dimples. She had beautiful eyes." "She always loved people, and she's always there for people."
But the biggest thing one friend, who didn't want to be identified, wants people to know is that Toland's homeless friends didn't kill her. "I don't want homeless people to be made a mockery of," she said.
A friend also said she didn't know the victim by name, claiming Toland's husband, Gary, didn't seem to want to let her get that close to others. But this homeless woman says she considered Toland family. The woman won't say much about how the couple acted together, just that she wasn't surprised it ended the way it did.
This past Wednesday, people near the state fairgrounds saw Toland's body floating in the river. On Thursday, Salt Lake police detectives say they had enough evidence to believe she died as the result of a homicide.
Detective Jeff Bedard of the Salt Lake City Police Department said, "We know she was in there for an extended period of time. We're still trying to figure out exactly how long she was in the water and when exactly the homicide took place."
At first, police had no idea who she was.
"We were able to talk to witnesses in the area that frequent that Jordan River area that were able to help us identify who she was," Bedard said.
Homeless people in the area helped police identify her body and told them she had a husband. Detectives say the two were homeless and had moved around from city to city the past few years. That same husband reported her missing two months ago.
But a phone call from this past Saturday really got the case going.
Detective Bedard said, "The caller stated that he had just pushed somebody into the river and asked us to notify her husband. Through our investigation, we came to find out that, in fact, that person who called was her husband."
Last night, police arrested Gary Toland and charged him with his wife's murder. Investigators believe he beat his wife on her head with something, killing her, then threw her into the river.
Her friends thought the two just moved away. Now they know better. "He deceived us," they said.
Booking documents quote detectives as saying the suspect admitted to the crime.
Police still aren't sure how long the woman had been in the river. They also aren't sure if she was killed near the fairgrounds, or somewhere else and dumped.
