Inside the courtroom: Should former Utah death row inmate be released on bail 40 years later?

PROVO — Ian Olesen was only 12-years-old when his grandma Eva Olesen was brutally murdered in her Provo home.

"I have lived more than 40 years with the consequences of this crime, carrying the loss of my grandmother from childhood to adulthood," he said, choking back emotion, during a bail hearing for Douglas Carter, who spent those four decades locked up on Utah's Death Row until his conviction was overturned in May of 2025.

"For 40 years, the Olesen family has lived with a life sentence of our own. Unlike Mr. Carter's sentence, ours came without the possibility of parole, appeals, bail, or release. We continue to carry the grief, the absence, the consequence of Eva Olesen's murder each and every day."

But Carter's family believes he was wrongly convicted and deserves to be free while he waits for a new trial, which could be nearly a year away.

Carter will turn 71 in a couple of weeks, and defense attorney Neal Hamilton called several witnesses to address concerns about what support and supervision would be available to him. His daughter-in-law Melissa Anger said she works from home and was willing to help with any concerns from the court or the program that works with inmates freed after lengthy incarcerations.

"So I am home all the time and could make myself available for whatever I needed to in order to help Doug," Melissa Anger said.

Hamilton asked why she'd do that for a man she only knows through phone calls.

"He didn't do this," Melissa Anger said. "I'm sorry, but he didn't. … We care for Doug immensely; even in the short time of getting to know him, we care for him a lot, and I want to help him."

The comment came at the end of a hearing where 4th District Judge Derek Pullan also heard a motion to suppress Carter's 1985 confession and tried to sort out how to handle dueling DNA requests from attorneys.

Pullan overturned Carter's conviction in 2022, finding misconduct by police and prosecutors. After the Utah Supreme Court upheld his decision in May of 2025, Carter was transferred from the prison to the Utah County Jail.

Pullan took the motion to suppress Carter's confession under advisement after both sides agreed they needed to sort out questions about the DNA evidence.

"To be completely honest, I think the DNA comparison should be dispositive of this entire case," Hamilton said. "If we have a side-by-side comparison of what everyone believes is the murderer's DNA."

Pullan interrupted, "... If Carter is excluded, that's what we're missing."

Prosecutor Erwin Petilos agreed.

"There's a lot riding on that test and these swabs. There's definitely arguments to be made that either way, these tests could be dispositive."

Pullan couldn't get answers about how long it would take to complete tests once Carter submitted to a new DNA test. He pointed out that he is retiring on Dec. 11.

"There is no judge in Utah who knows State v. Carter better than I do," Pullan said. "I should rule on these issues, in my view."

The two sides agreed Carter would be tested on Friday morning, although no one could say how long it would take to get results, especially if it involves the defense's DNA expert. That is why Hamilton asked Pullan to allow them to hold the bail hearing after that.

Pullan listened intently to emotional testimony from the Olesens, who begged the judge to keep Carter behind bars.

Gary Olesen struggled to say he was Eva Olesen's second son. After the judge offered him a break, he collected himself and continued.

"The possibility of Mr. Carter's release brings renewed fear and distress to our family," he said. "I am here to express our strong and unified opposition to the release of Douglas Stewart Carter."

Gary Olesen's wife said when she heard Carter was asking for a bail hearing, "an immediate sickness filled my soul."

Hamilton acknowledged the Olesen family's pain while arguing why Carter deserves the chance to post bail while awaiting a new trial.

"We have nothing but sympathy for what they have gone through and what they continue to go through," Hamilton said. "They deserve to have Eva's murder solved. But the fact of the matter is, the evidence, as it continues to evolve and develop, points to Doug not being that person."

He pointed to the DNA and reiterated the issues with the confession.

"I think 41 years is enough," he said.

Melissa and Tyler Anger said Carter wants a new trial because "he wants to clear his name." They say his frustration is with the system that has kept both families in limbo.

Prosecutors asked Melissa Anger if her feelings about having Carter involved in her life would change if it turns out his DNA is at the scene of Olesen's murder.

"No," she said emphatically.

Tyler Anger, who found out Carter was his biological father in 2009, said that sitting on the witness stand across the courtroom from Carter, whose hands and feet were shackled, was the most face-to-face contact he'd had with his birth father.

"What's the plan if Doug is released?" Hamilton asked. "Will he be involved in your life?"

"I would hope he would want to be," Tyler Anger said. "I would like to be involved in his."

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