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The body of slain Utah Transit Authority maintenance worker Kay Porter Ricks was released by the state medical examiner's office late Friday morning to his family, and authorities reportedly planned to privately update his survivors about the status of their investigation.
Richard Massey, spokesman for the 63-year-old Ricks' grieving family, confirmed that the remains arrived at Anderson Mortuary in Lehi about 11:45 a.m. The Ricks family earlier had announced plans for a funeral on Saturday, May 28, beginning at noon in the American Fork West Stake Center, 579 N. 680 West. Burial will follow at the Lehi City Cemetery.
Massey said he and Ricks' family met with UTA Police Chief Fred Ross, along with two unidentified "prosecutors" Friday afternoon, but because the investigation into Ricks' death is ongoing, they weren't told anything about the results of the autopsy.
At this point the police "don't trust anyone" with that information, Massey said, but Ricks' family understood and respected that fact and "didn't put the police in a position of an adversary."
UTA offered offered condolences to the family in the Friday meeting and discussed logistics of services they could offer and the process of recovering personal items, such as Ricks' phone, Massey said. He added that those in the meeting wanted to ensure that Ricks' family knew they were still part of the "UTA family."
Ricks' family members aren't focusing much on the criminal investigation, and are "not really even interested in justice or revenge," Massey said, but feel "at peace" having found his body and the truck.
UTA officials told family members at the meeting they could ask any questions, but Massey said they really didn't have any.
Preparing for the funeral is the main focus of Ricks' family moving forward, Massey said.
Law enforcement officials in both Utah and Wyoming, while refusing to discuss how Ricks was slain, have confirmed it was a homicide; they also have said father and son Utah kidnap suspects Flint and Dereck Harrison are primary persons of interest in the slaying.
The Harrisons, charged in the May 10 abductions and assaults of a mother and four teenage daughters in Centerville allegedly fled the state on May 12, the same day Harrison and his UTA utility truck disappeared from a Salt Lake City UTA TRAX light rail platform.
Police believe the Harrisons had been staying at a motel less than 2 miles away from where Ricks was last seen. Ricks was found dead Tuesday night near a dirt road in the high desert south of Kemmerer, in Lincoln County, Wyo.
The Harrisons were extradited to Utah and the Davis County Jail on Thursday afternoon from neighboring Sublette County, Wyo., where they had been arrested last Saturday. While they were en route, under guard by Centerville police officers, an airborne FBI agent spotted the missing UTA Ford F-150 truck in woods near Pinedale, Wyo.
The vehicle has been turned over to the FBI for forensic examination, but whether as of Friday the truck had been taken to the agency's offices in Salt Lake City or work continued on the scene in Wyoming could not immediately be confirmed.
Detectives also were mum on whether any of the weapons reported to be with the Harrisons — including a shotgun and two rifles — had been recovered. Searchers had been looking for both the truck and weapons in the Half Moon and Fremont lakes area, north of Pinedale.
Flint Harrison, 51, turned himself into police and then helped authorities locate his 22-year-old son.
Maryann Harrison, mother of Dereck and ex-wife of Flint, remained in the Sublette County Jail pending her release, expected next week, to the Utah Department of Corrections. She allegedly violated terms of her parole by traveling to Wyoming last weekend with money to try to bail out the two men.
The Harrisons are scheduled for a Monday afternoon initial appearance in Farmington's 2nd District Court in the Centerville kidnapping case, in which they are each charged with five counts of first-degree felony aggravated kidnapping, and other charges.
The motive for the Centerville abduction and assaults, police have said, appears to have been meth-fueled paranoia that the mother had informed police on their alleged drug activities.
Mariah Noble contributed to this report.
Twitter: @remims —
Services for Kay Ricks
P Public Viewing
Friday, 6:30 - 9 p.m.
• Anderson Mortuary
49 E. 100 North,
American Fork
P Funeral
May 28, noon
• American Fork West LDS Stake, 579 N. 680 West,
American Fork; burial to follow at Lehi City Cemetery.