Estimated read time: 3-4 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 Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information.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.
OGDEN — A man has been arrested in an attempted murder case after he allegedly beat another man with a log so badly that it took the man nearly two days to crawl his way to a road in order to seek help in 2017, according to a jail report.
Justin Robert Todd, 25, was booked into the Weber County Jail on Wednesday, jail records show. He was charged with attempted murder and aggravated robbery, first-degree felonies, in August 2017, about a month after the alleged beating occurred, according to court records.
Todd is a transient and could not be immediately located after the incident, according to the jail report. A warrant was issued in his case in October.
The charges stem from a July 31, 2017, incident in a transient camp west of 3300 S. Parker Drive in Ogden, according to the jail report. Police said Todd and another transient, 31-year-old Brittany Evans, severely beat a third transient, causing the man severe injuries, according to the report.
The three people had previously met up at a liquor store and had agreed to go to the camp to drink, according to the jail report. They were drinking for several hours together, the report states.
Evans became “extremely intoxicated” and began assaulting the third man, at which point Todd also began assaulting him, according to the report.
Evans told a fourth, unidentified transient person to hold down the alleged victim, and Evans then began to kick the man in the face, head and body with steel-toe boots, according to the report.
Evans and Todd also grabbed a large log and hit the man in the face, head and body with it, the report states. She told Todd and the fourth transient to help her “snap his neck and leave him for dead,” according to the jail report.
The man begged Evans, Todd and the fourth transient to stop and said “you’re killing me.” Evans replied: “That’s the point,” according to the report. The three continued assaulting the man until he became unconscious.
“(The man) was severely assaulted and couldn’t move so it took him nearly two days to crawl to a road where a passerby saw him and called the police,” the jail report states.
After being shown photos of several different people, the victim identified Evans and Todd as the people who assaulted him, according to the report.
Investigators believe Evans and Todd have been involved in several other assaults of a similar nature, and that they may have killed other transients, according to the report. Evans pleaded guilty in April 2018 to charges of attempted aggravated assault resulting in serious bodily injury and attempted aggravated robbery, according to court records.
Evans originally was charged with attempted murder and aggravated robbery, both first-degree felonies, but the charges were reduced to second-degree felonies as part of her plea agreement, court records show.
In May 2018, she was sentenced to serve between two and 30 years in prison in the case, according to a sentencing order filed in 2nd District Court in Weber County. She is still incarcerated at the Utah State Prison as of Thursday, according to Department of Corrections records.
Todd has an initial court appearance scheduled for Friday, court records show.