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SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Transit Authority police have remained tight-lipped about the investigation into the killing of employee Kay Ricks following a likely kidnapping.
Surveillance video from a convenience store in Wyoming may have helped authorities identify one of the suspects in the case, according to a newly released search warrant affidavit filed in 3rd District Court.
On the afternoon of May 12, Ricks, 63, of American Fork, went missing along with his UTA vehicle. It was later spotted in Diamondville, Wyoming, about 7 p.m. by employees of a fast food restaurant. Those employees could not confirm who or how many people were in the vehicle.
According to the investigators who wrote the warrant, "A person of interest was identified as driving the vehicle when it was recorded in a Maverik convenience store parking lot."
To this point, local, state and federal investigators have labeled Flint Harrison and his son Dereck "DJ" Harrison as "persons of interest" in the killing of Ricks, but have declined to give specific information about evidence possibly linking them to the crime.
The Harrisons are accused of luring a Clinton woman and her four teenage daughters to a house in Centerville on May 10, holding them hostage and beating them before the girls were able to escape and call 911. The father and son fled before police arrived.
Ricks was reported missing May 12. Investigators found surveillance video of the his vehicle leaving the area of 971 S. 200 West.
"A review of the video showed the victim’s cellphone falling out of the window or bed of the work truck. The surveillance could not identify the occupants of the vehicle to determine whether the missing person was in the vehicle," the affidavit states.
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Tyson Ricks remembered how, as a little boy, he would sit next to his dad as they drove in his old pickup truck.The cellphone was recovered a short distance from a UTA substation and turned over to police, the warrant states.
"The victim suffered unknown trauma that led to his apparent murder," the warrant also states. Investigators have still not said how Ricks was killed.
Flint Harrison, 51, was arrested near his home in Pinedale on May 14. Dereck Harrison, 22, of Centerville, was arrested later that same day about 10 miles away in the Half Moon Lake area.
After fleeing the Centerville home, investigators were able to retrace the Harrisons' steps to a Ramada Inn, 2450 S. State in South Salt Lake, early on the morning of May 11.
On May 17, Ricks' body was located in a rural area off a dirt road in Lincoln County, Wyoming, approximately 16 miles south of Kemmerer. The next day, his UTA truck was located about 100 miles away in the Half Moon Lake area.
The father and son each face five counts of kidnapping, a first-degree felony; one count of aggravated assault resulting in serious bodily injury, a second-degree felony; four counts of aggravated assault, a third-degree felony; possession of a controlled substance, a class A misdemeanor; possession of drug paraphernalia, a class B misdemeanor; and three counts of interrupting a communications device, a class B misdemeanor, all related to the Centerville incident.
