Willard man charged with murder

Willard man charged with murder

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WILLARD, Box Elder County — A Willard man has been charged with murder.

Chay Lance Blair, 25, was charged Wednesday in 1st District Court with the first-degree felony, as well as abuse or desecration of a dead body, a third-degree felony. An arrest warrant for Blair, who was captured in Idaho, was issued on Thursday.

Blair is accused of killing Cody D. Henderson, 27, of Ohio, whose body was found in Blair's garage, 435 S. Main, Wednesday morning. The cause of death was determined to be blunt force trauma, according to investigators.

Based on information collected at the crime scene, detectives "very quickly" developed a person of interest and arrested Blair in Idaho a few hours later.

Police say Henderson had been in Utah previously for work. He was back in the Beehive State to meet with acquaintances for an unknown reason, according to police.

A motive for the killing was not known Friday. The Willard City Police Department is the lead agency in the investigation, while the Box Elder County Sheriff's Office and Utah Department of Public Safety assisted in the case.

Blair pleaded guilty to misdemeanor drug possession in 2016, but otherwise has no significant criminal history in Utah, according to court records.

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Pat Reavy is a longtime police and courts reporter. He joined the KSL.com team in 2021, after many years of reporting at the Deseret News and KSL NewsRadio before that.

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