New murder trial begins Monday for ex-death row inmate who confessed to killing

OGDEN — Douglas Lovell confessed to kidnapping and murdering Joyce Yost two weeks before she was scheduled to testify that he raped her.

That admission came seven years after the South Ogden woman disappeared from her home. He hoped the 1993 plea deal would keep him off of death row, but that deal hinged on police finding Yost's body.

Even with Lovell along to help the bizarre five-week search for the shallow grave he said he dug for Yost up Ogden Canyon in 1985 after he drugged and suffocated her, police could never find her body. A judge ordered him to die by lethal injection.

Now, nearly 30 years after Yost disappeared and after Lovell spent years on death row for killing her, an Ogden jury will begin hearing evidence Monday to determine whether Lovell is guilty of murdering Yost. In 2010, the Utah Supreme Court allowed him to withdraw his guilty plea after he argued that he had not been properly informed of his constitutional rights when the plea bargain was made.

Admitting to murder

Death didn't silence Yost's testimony. Using transcripts of her statements from a previous preliminary hearing, a jury found Lovell guilty in 1985 of kidnapping Yost, taking her to his Clearfield home and raping her. He was sentenced to 15 years to life.

He was serving time at the Utah State Prison when his ex-wife, Rhonda Butters, came to visit, secretly recording Lovell's confession for investigators.

"I committed a first-degree felony to cover another felony," Lovell said in the recording. "It's the death penalty. At the very least they're going to give me life without parole. If I cooperate with them, and go with them."

Prosecutors agreed to give Butters immunity, despite her admission that she had dropped Lovell off at Yost's home knowing he intended to harm the woman, then picked him up the next morning and helped him destroy evidence.

According to Butters, Lovell had tried to hire two different people to kill Yost, but they backed out. So he decided to do it himself, telling Yost he was only going to keep her until the rape trial was over, forcing her to pack a bag to make it look like she had left town.

Lovell was eventually charged with murder and pleaded guilty before a jury trial could begin. In a 1993 Associated Press interview, Lovell gave a detailed description of how he had murdered his accuser. Lovell had drugged Yost, 39, with so much Valium that she couldn't stand up, but he said he hadn't strangled her, like reports indicated.

"Her hands were tied behind her back, sort of to her side, tied with part of a towel or a sheet. She struggled a little when I put my hand over her mouth and blocked her nose. Then her body went stiff, and then went limp and I knew she was dead."

It was the deadly result of guilt and shame over the rape charges, Lovell said. Family and friends had turned on him, accusing him, and he was angry.

"It's complicated. I was embarrassed, ashamed at what I did," he said. "It was an issue of pride with my family and friends and it just started gears in my head and a denial thing set in, like I almost didn't believe I did what I did."

Cutting a deal

Lovell pleaded guilty in June 1993 to aggravated murder in the death of Joyce Yost.

"I've wanted to exactly do this for a long time," he said.

In exchange, Lovell expected to be spared the death penalty. He was asked if he would tell investigators where Yost's body was buried, giving them a chance for closure and a funeral.

Five times crews combed Ogden Canyon, taking Lovell along and using dogs, metal detectors and even psychics as they searched for the grave. At one point, Lovell was put under hypnosis. The body, however, was never found, and some investigators went as far as to say that Yost was trying to confuse their search to keep them away from other hidden bodies.

A 2nd District judge ruled in August 1993 that Lovell had failed to comply with his end of the deal and sentenced him to die by lethal injection. Yost's daughter, Kim Salazar, said in the courthouse that day that she hoped it wouldn't take another 15 years to carry out the sentence.

Utah death row inmate can withdraw guilty plea

Douglas Lovell's 1993 plea was for the 1985 slaying of Joyce Yost before she could testify against him in a kidnapping and rape trial. (Photo: Utah State Prison

Lovell began a decades-long battle against the sentence, saying he thought his plea deal had been secured when he gave his confession. His former attorney, however, testified that he had not promised him that the judge wouldn't turn to the death penalty.

The promise of immunity for Butters, however, was honored.

Lovell took his case to the Utah Supreme Court in 2009 and said his constitutional rights were violated because the court didn't inform him of all of his rights at the time he entered the guilty plea. The high court agreed in a 2010 ruling, determining the plea could be withdrawn and sending the case back to district court. The plea was withdrawn and a new trial was ordered.

Opening arguments in that new trial begin Monday.

Russell Lovell said in 2009 that his brother was hoping that a jury would hear his case and perhaps a new sentence could allow him to be paroled one day. Whether or not he's convicted and receives a sentence that allows that, it seems unlikely the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole would ever parole him.

Still a suspect?

Lovell, who is now 57, was asked in 1993 whether he was connected to the disappearances of two other women in northern Utah around the same time as Yost.

Sheree Warren, 25, was last seen leaving her bank job in Ogden on Oct. 2, 1985. Her body was never found, but her car was located a month later in Las Vegas.

Theresa Rose Greaves, 23, went missing Aug. 5, 1983, after leaving her home for a job interview. Her body was found on a Fruits Heights hillside just last month and her remains were identified just days ago.

"I don't know either of these woman," he said at the time. "They're making me out to be a serial killer, and that's not the case."

The Davis County Sheriff's Office hasn't confirmed whether they are interviewing Lovell or focussing on him as a suspect. But they're not excluding him either.

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