Jury chooses life without parole for ex-Utahn convicted of murder a second time

Jury chooses life without parole for ex-Utahn convicted of murder a second time

(Wasatch County Sheriff's Office)


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HEBER CITY — A man found guilty of killing a teenage girl while he was on parole for another murder will spend the rest of his life behind bars, a jury ruled Friday.

Joseph Michael Simpson, 49, was found guilty Thursday of killing 17-year-old Krystal Lynn Beslanowitch in 1995. Because he had pleaded guilty to murder once before, the charge against Simpson was filed as an aggravated murder, a first-degree felony.

Since prosecutors had determined not to seek the death penalty, jurors were asked to choose between a sentence of 25 years to life in prison or life without the possibility of parole. After brief deliberations Friday, the 12-person jury opted not to give Simpson a chance to ever be released from prison again.

Prosecutors say it was Simpson, an airport shuttle driver at the time, who brutally killed Beslanowitch by beating her head with a rock. The Washington state teen had been working as a prostitute in Salt Lake City for about six months to support a drug habit at the time she disappeared, according to police. Her body was found naked and bloody on the banks of the Provo River in Midway.

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Beslanowitch's case went cold until 2013 when advances in forensic technology identified Simpson's DNA on evidence collected from the girl's body and the rocks suspected to be the murder weapon. Simpson was arrested in Sarasota, Florida, where he had been living with his parents since 1997.

During a four-week jury trial, prosecutors argued Simpson's DNA on Beslanowitch's body and the rocks used to kill her, as well as his airport shuttle route past the site where her body was found, showed he was the killer. Simpson's attorney argued that while his client admitted to frequenting prostitutes, the mere presence of the man's DNA on Beslanowitch's body was not enough evidence to convict him.

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