Police confiscate Jesus picture from teen charged with shooting girl


Save Story
Leer en español

Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

SMITHFIELD — One of the two teenagers accused of luring a 14-year-old Amalga girl to a ditch and shooting her in the head is also being investigated for burglary and theft of a religious painting at an LDS meetinghouse, according to a newly unsealed search warrant affidavit.

On Jan. 31, police were called to a Smithfield church, 600 E. 120 South, on a report that a canvas picture that was inside one of the classrooms had been cut out of its frame and was missing, according to the affidavit filed in 1st District Court.

Two weeks later, on Feb. 16, two 16-year-old boys lured Deserae Turner to a canal after school under the guise of buying a knife, then shot her once in the back of the head at close range, according to police. Charging documents say the boys had plotted to kill her.

Deserae was found hours later gravely wounded in a dry canal east of Sky View High School.

While serving a search warrant on one of the Smithfield boys' homes on Feb. 18, "a canvas picture of Jesus Christ was located in the bedroom," the warrant states.

"The picture was found in (the boy's) closet on top of a blue plastic bin. The picture was rolled and appeared the edges had been cut by a knife or sharp bladed object."

Related:

The boy lives just a few blocks away from the church that was burglarized.

Smithfield police did not immediately return a call for comment Friday.

The two teens are charged in juvenile court with attempted aggravated murder and aggravated robbery, first-degree felonies, in connection with the shooting. They also face four counts of obstruction of justice, a second-degree felony. The Cache County Attorney's Office says it will seek to have the boys certified to face the charges as adults.

KSL has chosen not to identify the two teens at this time.

Related stories

Most recent Utah stories

Related topics

Utah
Pat Reavy

    STAY IN THE KNOW

    Get informative articles and interesting stories delivered to your inbox weekly. Subscribe to the KSL.com Trending 5.
    By subscribing, you acknowledge and agree to KSL.com's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

    KSL Weather Forecast