Blood Icicles

On 22 December 1990, three generations of the Tidwell family drove up to a cabin they owned in the mountains above Oakley, Utah, to spend Christmas together. Kay Tidwell, fifty-one, and her mother Beth Harmon Tidwell Potts, seventy-two and partially blind, arrived with Kay's twenty-year-old daughter Lanae at about half past three in the afternoon. The cabin, which the family called Tide's Tranquility, sat about two and a half miles off the road and could only be reached by snowmobile in winter. The family had been staying with relatives in Salt Lake City the night before and had come back with Christmas shopping. Kay's husband Rolf, also fifty-one, and their seventeen-year-old daughter Trisha were expected later.

What none of them knew was that two men had been hiding in the cabin since the night before. details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it

Lanae went in first to warm her frozen hands and saw a grey flash behind the refrigerator. She assumed a cousin had arrived early, but a frizzy-haired man in a grey sweatshirt came out with a pistol pointed at her. A second man with thick glasses appeared from the back bedroom and pointed a gun at her mother. Kay asked what they wanted and offered them anything. Seconds later the shooting began. Kay was hit and went down; Beth was shot in the head and blood sprayed across the room. Lanae was bound with duct tape and put in a bedroom. She begged to call a hospital, but the men behaved as though nothing had happened. She began planning an escape, knowing the family car was outside and that her father kept the keys under the mat.

About two hours later Rolf and Trisha arrived on snowmobiles. A man in a full ski mask stepped out from behind the garage with a gun and ordered them inside. Rolf could see the tears in Lanae's eyes and understood that something terrible had happened. The men asked for money; he handed over the only cash he had, 105 dollars, and was made to take off his snow gear until he stood barefoot in a T-shirt. this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed The first round apparently misfired; the next hit Rolf in the face and knocked him down. He lay still, pretending to be dead, as gasoline was poured over his legs, back and head. Then he was shot again in the back of the head. One of the two rounds was birdshot, which helped him survive.

the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it The men forced Lanae and Trisha onto the snowmobiles, each with a man behind her, and told the girls they had to come because they had seen their faces. At the main gate the sisters passed their uncle Randy Zorn, who had just arrived for the holiday. They pretended not to know him, afraid the men would shoot him. The men abandoned the snowmobiles, took the family's Lincoln and drove off. Randy followed, and when his mobile phone found a signal he called 911. On Highway 189 the Lincoln crashed off the road at over ninety miles an hour. this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed Lanae screamed at the police to kill them both.

Back at the cabin, Rolf came round, put out the flames on himself in the shower and, with two bullets in his face and blood freezing into icicles, rode a snowmobile two miles through twenty-below weather to the gate. He told Randy that his wife had been killed and his daughters kidnapped. A medical helicopter flew him to University Hospital; he was in critical condition but recovered in time to attend the funerals. Police found a scene like a miniature war zone: frozen pools of blood, blood icicles hanging through the floorboards, the top floor still burning, and the two women dragged onto the deck and covered with a blanket and snow. They also found ten other break-ins in the cabin complex and a videotape on the coffee table. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it

this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now Levine challenged none of them. details of the account remain covered until revealed

The prosecution called medical examiner investigator James Bell and asked him to rate the killing on a scale of one to ten for grossness. He said about nine, because it was a stranger-to-stranger, face-to-face shooting. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now He chose lethal injection rather than the firing squad and said he had nothing else to say.

details of the account remain covered until revealed Lanae was made to handle the murder weapon in court, which she found revolting. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed

the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it In 1992 Rolf remarried, Lanae married and moved to Billings, Montana, and Trisha began at BYU. Rolf rebuilt the burned cabin and the family kept going back, calling it magical and healing. He died of cancer in 2008, aged about seventy. this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it In 2016 he claimed he was innocent and asked for a new hearing, which the state opposed. this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed