Heber City jury convicts man of murdering teen in 1995


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HEBER CITY — A jury has found a man once imprisoned for murder guilty of a cold case killing committed after he was released on parole.

After about four hours of deliberation, jurors found Joseph Michael Simpson, 49, guilty of aggravated murder Thursday in the 1995 death of Krystal Lynn Beslanowitch. The teenager who had been living in Salt Lake City was found naked with her skull beaten in with a rock on the banks of the Provo River in Midway.

Because Simpson's 1987 conviction of murder in a stabbing could be considered prejudicial to jurors, they were instructed to issue a finding of fact of whether they believed Simpson killed Beslanowitch. After the jury determined that he had killed the teen, they were told of the 1987 murder and that the conviction bumped the current charge against Simpson to aggravated murder.

Jurors then deliberated again briefly before finding Simpson guilty of aggravated murder. They will begin Friday to hear testimony before deciding whether Simpson will be sentenced to 25 years to life in prison or life in prison without parole. At least 10 of the 12 jurors must agree in order for Simpson to receive the life without parole sentence.

After pleading guilty to the murder charge in 1987, Simpson was sentenced to five years to life in the Utah State Prison and was paroled in April 1995. Beslanowitch was found dead eight months later.

With scant evidence and few suspects in the weeks following Beslanowitch's death, her case quickly went cold. Prosecutors didn't get another break until 2013, when advances in forensic technology identified Simpson's DNA profile on Beslanowitch's body and the rocks suspected to be the murder weapon.

In closing arguments Thursday, prosecutor Case Wade said Simpson's DNA is backed by other evidence identifying him as the person who killed Beslanowitch, a once bubbly teenager whose life ended up being short and troubled.

"It's important to note here that this wasn't just some random guy," Wade said. "It isn't just that his DNA was there. It's that his DNA was there and the supporting factors line up."

DNA showed that Simpson, who has admitted to frequenting prostitutes, had sex with Beslanowitch that night, Wade said.

At the time of Beslanowitch's death, Simpson worked as an airport shuttle driver and had taken customers multiple times to the Homestead, an iconic hot springs resort in Heber City. His route on those trips, the prosecutor noted, took him directly past the area where the girl's body was found.

Defense attorney Richard Gale emphasized during the trial that other DNA was found on the rocks at the scene. The mere presence of his client's DNA and his job as a driver is not enough to prove he killed the girl, Gale argued.

"There is a mixture of DNA," he said. "It's not just Joe. It's from other people. DNA is not the gold standard when there's a mixture of DNA. It points in two directions."

In rebuttal, Wade noted that while trace evidence from at least two unknown men also was found during the investigation, Simpson's was the only DNA found in a sufficient amount to identify an individual profile.

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Instead of DNA, Gale pointed to investigators' first lead as "the single most important piece of evidence" in the case: a single bloody fingerprint found on Beslanowitch's wrist.

It was long believed the fingerprint would eventually identify the killer, but when DNA identified Simpson, the print didn't match. Instead, police say the only person they have found as a possible match for the fingerprint is Todd Bonner, a detective at the time of the killing and now the Wasatch County sheriff.

Gale disagreed with investigators' explanation that while he doesn't remember whether he touched Beslanowitch's body without gloves, a shocked Bonner left the print when he went to check the girl's pulse.

"Even an inexperienced sheriff knows when you have a dead body and you have blood on your hands, you don't touch the body," Gale said. "The print was left there by the murderer, not by Sheriff Bonner."

Wade maintained that testimony from an expert witness backs the belief that Bonner leaving the print is among the most likely explanations.

"The irony is not lost on anyone that, for a lot of years, everyone was looking at this fingerprint and saying, 'This will show us who the murderer is,'" Wade said.

Since his arrest, prosecutors say Simpson confessed to the murder to two fellow inmates in the Wasatch County Jail, men who Gale claims had self-serving motives when they testified during the trial.

Gale also outlined other evidence either lost over the years or not testified to at trial — pieces of Beslanowitch's clothing that were eventually found, other men who had been considered suspects, a paper bag containing pornographic magazines — and other items that could have potentially cleared Simpson.

Wade called the defense's argument a list of irrelevant and unrelated factors meant to muddle the fact that the location and quantity of Simpson's DNA shows he is the only possible suspect in Beslanowitch's death.

Involved in prostitution and drug use since she was 15, Beslanowitch moved to Salt Lake City from Washington about six months before her death with a man who has been called both her boyfriend and her pimp. Together, they became involved in increasingly illegal activity to support their drug habits.

After an encounter with a man in a seedy Salt Lake motel on Dec. 15, 1995, Beslanowitch's boyfriend told police she headed to a nearby convenience store to get food and never returned.

The first-degree felony charge against Simpson is a capital offense, but prosecutors opted not to seek the death penalty. A former Utah resident, Simpson had been living with his parents in Sarasota, Florida, since 1997 when investigators linked his DNA to the scene of Beslanowitch's killing and arrested him.

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