Former Public Enemy No. 1 sentenced to life in prison without parole for murder of his girlfriend

Terrence Trent Vos, 35, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Friday after a jury found him guilty of the aggravated murder of his girlfriend.

Terrence Trent Vos, 35, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Friday after a jury found him guilty of the aggravated murder of his girlfriend. (Salt Lake Police Department)


Save Story

Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes

KEY TAKEAWAYS
  • Terence Trent Vos was sentenced to life without parole on Friday for murdering girlfriend, Shandon Scott, in 2021.
  • Scott was shot at a townhome complex and her body was found in a crashed car on I-80; a witness said Vos was driving.
  • Vos received additional sentences for firearm charges and obstructing justice and has current pending charges.

SALT LAKE CITY — Terence Trent Vos will spend the rest of his life in prison, without the possibility of parole, after he was found guilty of aggravated murder in the killing of his girlfriend, Shandon Nicole Scott.

Unified police responded to a crash on I-80 in Salt Lake County in the early morning hours of May 1, 2021, and found Scott, 32, with "many gunshot wounds," according to the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office.

A witness to the crash reported seeing Vos in the driver's seat; the person said Vos had tried to take their vehicle but they stopped him. Vos ran from the scene when law enforcement arrived.

Unified police later said Scott was shot at a townhome complex at 700 East and 2700 South shortly before officers responded to the crash at 3 a.m. Their investigation found neighbors heard pounding, screaming and gunshots about 2:45 a.m.

After being arrested, Vos told officers someone else had shot Scott, but he then admitted to a friend during a phone call while incarcerated that he had gotten into a fight with Scott and shot her.

Vos, 35, of Salt Lake City, is a former Public Enemy No. 1 of the Salt Lake City Metro Gang Unit.

In addition to his life sentence, the judge gave Vos four sentences of five years to life for three counts of felony discharge of a firearm causing serious injury and possession of a firearm as a restricted person, first-degree felonies. Vos also received a sentence of one to 15 years in prison for obstructing justice, a second-degree felony. He was given credit for the time he served resolving his conviction for failure to stop at the command of a law officer, a class A misdemeanor.

Third District Judge Elizabeth Hruby-Mills ordered each of the sentences to run consecutively with previous sentences in other cases but concurrently with each other.

In a statement Friday, Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill said his office hopes Scott's family can "now begin to heal" from their loss.

"We applaud the judge for sentencing the defendant to life without the possibility of parole. The streets of Salt Lake County will be safer now that this violent habitual offender is behind bars for the rest of his life," Gill said.

Vos was found guilty in March following a six-day jury trial. He has received multiple charges for alleged crimes while incarcerated since the killing, including threatening Utah Department of Corrections officers last month.

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.

Related stories

Most recent Police & Courts stories

Related topics

Police & CourtsUtahSalt Lake County
Emily Ashcraft is a reporter for KSL.com. She covers issues in state courts, health and religion. In her spare time, Emily enjoys crafting, cycling and raising chickens.

STAY IN THE KNOW

Get informative articles and interesting stories delivered to your inbox weekly. Subscribe to the KSL.com Trending 5.
By subscribing, you acknowledge and agree to KSL.com's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Newsletter Signup

KSL Weather Forecast

KSL Weather Forecast
Play button