Estimated read time: 5-6 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 Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information.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.
SALT LAKE CITY — Three Salt Lake police officers failed in the early stages of a case to properly handle reports of a missing Salt Lake woman whose body was later discovered in Tooele County where her ex-boyfriend had left her after murdering her.
That was the recent conclusion of the Salt Lake City Police Civilian Review Board, which sustained allegations of "unsatisfactory work performance" against officers Marika Ascarte, Isaac Black and Dixon Whitehead. Specifically, the officers failed to list Brooklyn Elise Odland Tyree on a national missing database in a timely manner.
But while Salt Lake Police Chief Mike Brown says he values the board's perspective, he says the department's own Internal Affairs review of the case showed the officers actually followed policy.
"No policy was broken," he said. "Our officers do a fantastic job and I support them. They're placed in difficult situations. They did everything they could."
A separate allegation against Whitehead accusing him of being discourteous to Tyree's mother when she tried to report her daughter as missing was "undetermined" by the board, meaning there was "insufficient evidence to support a conclusion as to whether or not the employee violated policy."
Each officer had been with the department two years or less at the time of the incident.
Tyree, 23, was last seen on May 3, 2022, when she and her 7-month-old boy, Braxton Tyree, were picked up by Tyree's ex-boyfriend, Brandon Scott Zipperle, at Tyree's Salt Lake apartment. Zipperle is Braxton's father.
On May 6, 2022, Tyree's body was found partially covered by a sleeping bag hidden in sagebrush in the Five Mile Pass Recreation Area of Tooele County. Her body was found by a father and his son who were recreating in the area. An autopsy determined Tyree had been shot.
In February, Zipperle was sentenced to a term of 15 years to life in the Utah State Prison after pleading guilty to murder.
On May 5, 2022, Tyree's mother went to the Salt Lake City Police Department to report her daughter as missing and possibly endangered due to past threats made by Zipperle and because the family suspected he was lying about what he knew about Tyree's whereabouts. But according to former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, a friend of Tyree's family who filed a complaint with the city on behalf of Tyree's mother, the officer whom the mother spoke with "blew her off" and was condescending.
"Although members of Brook's family told police officers they had text messages from Brandon with entirely inconsistent, dishonest accounts about Brook and (her son), the police never showed any interest whatsoever in the text messages and never even asked for them. That was characteristic of the indifferent attitude demonstrated by police officers," Anderson alleged in his complaint.
Because of the way Tyree's mother was treated by officers, Anderson delivered a letter on May 9, 2022, to Chief Mike Brown and Mayor Erin Mendenhall calling for their resignations for the "outrageous failure and refusal of the Salt Lake City Police Department to investigate the disappearance of Brook and the incredibly rude, indifferent, and dismissive conduct of police officers toward those friends and family members." Anderson says the family was not notified that Tyree's body had bene discovered until May 10, 2022.
The civilian reviews board's report found that Tyree was not listed on the national database for missing people until May 8, 2022, at 10:11 p.m. — two days after her body was found.
But Brown noted even by the time Tyree's mother contacted police, her daughter was already deceased. As for waiting until May 8 to list Tyree as missing on the national database, Brown says a veteran supervisor was consulted by the officers and it was determined "at the time they didn't feel like they had enough information to list her on (the National Crime Information Center database)."
Brown said he feels his officers did everything they could in this case and did a good job investigating it. He says, however, that he respects the board's findings and believes their perspective can be used as an opportunity for the department to grow and help the department find ways to better serve the community.
According to the board's findings, however, when Tyree's mother first met with Whitehead to get help, the officer "failed to ask more questions about Brooklyn and Brandon's relationship or specifically why she was afraid of him. ... Officer Whitehead's initial investigation related to a possible missing person was very brief, specifically 14 minutes. The report he submitted was inaccurate and omitted some important details provided by Brooklyn's family.
"Officer Whitehead believed that Brooklyn left her home willingly with friends and was not in any immediate danger," the board concluded.
When Tyree's mother went back to police on May 6, 2022, to find out if any progress had been made in her daughter's case, she found out that Tyree had not been listed as a missing person. And when officers Ascarte and Black contacted Zipperle and co-defendant Elizabeth Ludwig to question them about what they knew about Tyree's disappearance and why Zipperle had his son and not his mother, they "did not ask them to elaborate about the threats (he recently made to Tyree) to obtain more details," the board concluded.
"Officers Ascarte and Black failed to ask follow-up questions," even though all the information provided by Tyree's mother and sister "should have raised some red flags regarding her safety."
Correction: Anderson delivered his letter to the city before the family was notified that Tyree's body had been found. An earlier version incorrectly stated it was given to Brown and Mendenhall after the family found out about the discovery.
