West Valley City » Kimberly Hain, a 33-year-old mother of two who was found dead in her home Friday, was killed by her next-door neighbor, police say.

At a late night news conference Tuesday, West Valley police announced the arrest of Martin R. Vuksinick, 18, saying the man admitted his involvement in her death and led police to an alleged murder weapon: a baseball bat.

Documents filed with the Salt Lake County jail claim Vuksinick said he entered Hain's home to commit theft. When he encountered Hain, the documents say, Vuksinick hit her with his fists then retrieved a baseball bat and struck her in the head multiple times.

Police say they have recovered the bat. Vuksinick also told police he took cocaine the night of the slaying, said police Capt. Tom McLachlan.

The documents also say a medical examiner made a preliminary determination Hain died from blunt force trauma and strangulation, but police have not said anything about how Hain might have been strangled.

Police had asked that Vuksinick's parents bring their son to police headquarters Tuesday for an interview. They were interested in talking to the man because his actions were "somewhat strange at the scene," said McLachlan. He was one of several people police were interviewing.

Vuksinick's parents apparently had no idea their son was involved in the crime, he said. On Saturday, Hain's neighbor, Cheryl Vuksinick, recalled Hain as a wonderful mother and spoke of how close the two families were.

"They are totally devastated," McLachlan said of Martin Vuksinick's parents.

Martin Vuksinick told officers that nobody else took part in the crime, McLachlan said.

He also told officers that he entered the home through an unlocked door and later, McLachlan said, led investigators to a bat claimed to be the murder weapon in a field near 6000 West and 2700 South.

McLachlan wouldn't discuss the suspected motive for the crime. He said nothing was taken from Hain's home, and police were serving a search warrant at Vuksinick's home late Tuesday night.

Hain died from a beating to the head and face. She was found Friday morning by her 8-year-old son, who is autistic, and 6-year-old daughter, in the bedroom of her home near 6600 West Fanfare Court (3300 South). Police don't know whether the children witnessed the crime.

The children waited for their father, Douglass Patrick Hain Jr., to come home from his graveyard shift as a nurse at LDS Hospital. He called police. Kimberly Hain was last seen alive between 8 and 10 p.m., when she bathed the children and put them to bed.

Kimberly Hain grew up in West Jordan and married her high school sweetheart, said Kari Hain, Douglass Hain's stepmother.

He became a nurse, and she was a certified nurse's assistant who was working toward a nursing degree at Salt Lake Community College.