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Richard Piatt ReportingA convicted killer has a date with death. A third district court judge today set an execution date for Ralph Menzies.
Menzies, was convicted in 1988 for the brutal murder of Maurine Hunsaker, a young mother of three. It's a crime Hunsaker's now-grown children are still living with.
The oldest of Maurine Hunsaker's children was ten and half when she was killed. Today, Matt Hunsaker is 28, with a family of his own. He's a grown man still living with what happened: A child's worst nightmare.
Matt Hunsaker, Victim's Son: "I would say it's getting worse with time, with my children growing up."
Time has not helped gloss over a chasm of emptiness in Matt Hunsaker's life. It is a void created when his mother disappeared, later found murdered in 1986.
Maurine Hunsaker was a 26-year old mother of three young children, working at a Kearns convenience store at the time. She was kidnapped on a cold winter night. A hiker found her days later, brutally, fatally injured and left to die.
Police arrested then 27-year old Ralph Menzies. Two years later Menzies was convicted and sentenced to die. When a judged asked him how he would like to die, Menzies said: 'Shoot me.' That will be a moment Matt Hunsaker has been anticipating for 16 years.
Matt Hunsaker, Victim's Son: "I firmly feel that the final chapter is when I watch him be executed. They're doing it in a humane way with him, as opposed to the inhumane way he did it to my mother."
Menzies denies he's responsible and has exhausted appeal after appeal over the years. During that time, Matt and his brother and sister have grown up. Matt's children ask questions about their missing grandmother. He's now older than she was when she died.
The ten and a half year old boy inside him lives with what happened every day. The grown man lives with the anger over the injustice of her death.
Matt Hunsaker, Victim’s Son: "I try not to think about those things in court because the rage climbs in."
Ralph Menzies is scheduled to die by firing squad on November 10th. He still has a right to an appeal to a Federal Court.
