12-week trial scheduled in 2028 for man accused of killing Tremonton officers

TREMONTON — A 12-week trial has been scheduled in 2028 for the man accused of killing two Tremonton officers during a domestic violence response last year.

Ryan Michael Bate, 34, is facing the death penalty on two counts of aggravated murder, a capital offense, along with more than a dozen other charges. He was ordered to stand trial in September after a two-day preliminary hearing in June where prosecutors argued Bate intended to kill all officers who responded to his home.

On Aug. 17, 2025, Tremonton-Garland police officer Eric Estrada, 32, and Sgt. Lee Sorensen, 56 were shot and killed while responding to the Bate residence for a domestic violence report. During Bate's alleged "rampage," he killed Estrada and Sorenson, and injured Box Elder County sheriff's deputy Mike Allred and his police K-9, Azula, a 3-year-old female Belgian Malinois, prosecutors said.

In a hearing last week, 1st District Judge Spencer D. Walsh set dates for a 12-week trial starting May 15, 2028, through Aug. 4, 2028.

Bate's attorneys filed a motion to quash earlier this month, challenging the court's decision to bind Bate over on all charges.

That motion claims the prosecutors' bind-over arguments for half of the 18 charges relied exclusively on the recorded interview Bate's former wife did with Weber County investigators after the shooting.

The defense argues that the recording, which contained "the interwoven speech of four people," was not admissible as it wasn't "a statement of a declarant that is written, recorded or transcribed verbatim," the motion states.

The interview was not her giving a statement but was instead her answering questions that she had no hand in, the defense claims.

"The investigators decided what the statement would be about, in what order and in what depth," the motion says. "The question is whether the rule reaches a recording in which the declarant's statement has no boundary, in which what she said and what was said to her and for her are inseparable on the exhibit."

Because the recording shouldn't have been accepted into the court for the preliminary hearing, the bind-over ruling for some of the charges should be vacated, the defense argued.

Prosecutors must file a response to the quash motion by Nov. 30, and the defense will have until Dec. 11 to file a reply. A hearing for oral arguments on the motion will be held on Jan. 22.

Based on the September ruling, Bate is ordered to stand trial for two counts of aggravated murder, a capital offense; three counts of attempted aggravated murder, a first-degree felony; endangering a police service dog, a third-degree felony; three counts of possessing an explosive, a second-degree felony; two counts of possession of a dangerous weapon with criminal intent, class A misdemeanors; and unlawful detention and threatening violence, two counts of domestic violence-related assault and three counts of domestic violence in the presence of a child, class B misdemeanors.

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