Murder Mystery Gone Wild

Dr. K. Sherman Mortenson was born on 6 July 1939 in Ephraim, Utah, the oldest of five children, and grew up on a farm raising sheep with his father. He married Hermona Anderson and they had four children, Roger K., Julie Janet and Paul. Mortenson collected degrees from Snow College, Utah State University and the University of Utah, took a PhD in metallurgy and joined Brigham Young University in 1968, teaching manufacturing design, engineering technology and mechanical engineering for more than thirty years until he left in 2005. He was widely respected by colleagues and students. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it He and Hermona later divorced, and in retirement he married Darla Pectol Jones, a bright, sociable woman with grown children of her own.

Mortenson was also a survivalist. He believed nuclear war, civil war, pandemics and economic collapse were coming, and he built himself a fortress in Payson: around a hundred guns kept in strategic positions all over the house, a separate underground bunker stocked with weapons, ammunition, tinned food and water, and a black belt in karate. He was frugal apart from guns and preparations, invested well enough to be worth millions by the early 2000s, and put his money in a trust for his children. He told his sister Fern that if society collapsed and her family came hungry to his door he would probably shoot her, because he did not have enough for everybody.

His eldest son Roger had a different life. He served in the Navy and worked for the state of Utah, then in 1994 he was in an all-terrain vehicle accident that left him with a brain injury. Afterwards he could not hold a job, began using drugs and became combative. 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 He lived on disability, less than a mile from his father, and the two men were constant companions.

On 16 November 2009 Mortenson's wife Darla was in Salt Lake County with her daughter, who was having a baby. Mortenson stayed home. At 8.52 that evening Roger Mortenson called 911, with his wife Pamela, known as Pam, beside him, and said armed men had tied them up. The call was confused and contradictory. Police found K. Sherman Mortenson in an upstairs bathroom, kneeling over the bath with his throat cut at least five times and a stab wound to the back of his neck. The medical examiner said the wounds would have taken one to five minutes to kill him. There was no forced entry. Drawers and gun lockers were untouched, but guns were missing, including weapons from the hidden bunker, while valuable collector pieces had been left behind. Seasoned raw meat sat on a countertop grill.

Roger and Pam said they had come with a pecan pie for game night, found an unfamiliar car, been let in by a stranger, then held at gunpoint and bound with zip ties at wrists and ankles. Roger said he began to pray aloud and the intruders bowed their heads, then changed their minds and let them live on condition that they told police three black men had broken in. They said the men took Roger's driving licence, read out his address and threatened to kill them if they deviated from the script.

Detectives grew suspicious. The couple seemed composed. Their accounts changed repeatedly, including the number and race of the attackers and whether Pam saw blue fuzzy gloves or purple ones. They showed no marks from the zip ties. They were deeply in debt and Roger stood to inherit a third of his father's millions. In January 2010 police named them persons of interest, and both failed polygraph tests. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it Pam was offered a deal to testify against Roger and refused. this part of the story is covered for now

In early December 2010 an anonymous tip led investigators to a house in Vernal, where they found Mortenson's stolen guns. 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 Twenty of the guns were recovered, fourteen of them buried, some in a septic tank at Vernal Park.

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 this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed Mortenson is buried in Ephraim State Cemetery in San Pete County, Utah, in plot H365.