Utah's Cold Cases: Detectives take fresh look at 41-year-old Ogden Canyon homicide

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Detectives are revisiting a 41-year-old Ogden Canyon homicide.
Potential DNA evidence is being looked at to give investigators new answers.
Anyone with information should contact the Weber Metro Cold Case Task Force.

OGDEN — It's a murder that has remained unsolved for more than 41 years — a late-night knock at the door at a home in Ogden Canyon that turned into a deadly shooting.

Now, detectives are hoping a fresh look, including at potential DNA evidence, will yield new answers in the investigation.

According to records from the Weber County Sheriff's Office, Andrew Jay Hansen was home with his wife and brother-in-law on April 15, 1984, when there was a late-night knock at the door.

"There was a man that was at the door who tried to force his way into the door," said Weber County sheriff's detective Caleb Rivera during an interview with KSL-TV. "He was about 6 foot tall, was wearing a black ski mask."

A struggle quickly ensued between the unknown man and Hansen, who tried to push the door back closed.

"(At) some point during that struggle, there was a shot that rang out," Rivera said. "Jay fell to the ground and was saying, 'Help me.'"

Hansen ultimately died of his wounds, and deputies said the shooter took off — possibly with someone else — in a two-tone Chevy Impala, never to be seen again.

According to investigators, Hansen had been known to be dealing marijuana out of the house along with his wife and brother-in-law, and case files talked about a potential rift with local bikers.

"The Sundowners had allegedly threatened them because they were upset that they were selling their marijuana at a cheaper cost," said detective Jessica Jolley.

Investigators developed multiple potential suspects, including Brad Bromage, a Sundowner who deputies said set up Hansen for a robbery six months earlier.

Rivera said Bromage admitted to the initial robbery but denied any involvement in the homicide.

Ron Duncombe's name came up later when a Wyoming inmate told police that he and Bromage had gone together into the canyon to steal pot at the time of the killing, according to the current investigators.

The investigators said additional potential suspects from the 1984 murder investigation included a man named Chris who was seeking marijuana and had tried to visit Hansen the day he was killed.

Detectives said Chris ended up traveling with Hansen to see his supplier, Terry, who lived in Salt Lake City. It was about 20 minutes after Hansen had returned home that the killing took place.

That errand also presented another potential angle for investigators.

"One thing that they found was that Terry may not have been home at the time of when Chris or when Jay and (his wife) went to his house, and that Jay was only supposed to pick up about 10 pounds of marijuana," Rivera explained. "It was known at the time Terry would sometimes front Jay for the marijuana without him having to pay for it at the time, but he was only supposed to pick up about 10 pounds, but he actually picked up the 16 pounds left. So one of the potential working theories was that Terry was upset about him taking more marijuana than he was supposed to and then potentially sent some people to go and take care of the issue."

While detectives collected a 9-millimeter casing, a button and someone's hair from the crime scene, the trail went cold without a confession or gun.

"The firearm itself is probably in a lake," Jolley conceded.

There was also no technology at the time that could have analyzed evidence for DNA.

"Unfortunately, those tests are very costly, and that's the biggest hangup in this situation is that we don't have the money to pay for that," Jolley said. "For testing purposes, because all of our main suspects are deceased at this point — Brad Bromage and Ron Duncombe are both dead —then we would have to send the hair that was in his fist, the button potentially for touch DNA and then the casing for various tests that can be done on that to the state lab and be compared against familial DNA."

The detectives said they were hoping to raise money through the Weber Metro Cold Case Task Force to do advanced testing to possibly confirm a killer. The task force is fundraising through its website to help pay for testing on this and other cold cases.

Anybody with information on the cases is asked to call or text the task force at 801-399-8672.

"We're hoping to get justice for Jay," Jolley said. "We can get some closure in this case and get some results from the evidence that has been sitting for 41 years."

Utah's Cold Cases is a series of KSL-TV stories and podcasts that highlight unsolved homicides, deaths and disappearances in our state. The Utah's Cold Cases podcast can be found wherever you listen.

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The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.