This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
In 1965, a 59-year-old section hand for the Great Western Railroad was arrested in Wendover for murder. Melvin J. Hurley made an offhand remark to a longtime friend that unraveled his world.
It turned out that Hurley, whom everyone in Tooele County knew as a hard worker, a loving husband and stepfather, was actually Tilton James Hall, wanted by the state of West Virginia for escaping from a prison road gang in 1948 where he was serving 99 years for the 1930 murder of his mother.
Hall was extradited back to prison, where he remained until a few months later when the West Virginia State Supreme Court ordered him released. Hall came back to Utah and picked up his life.
For 17 years, Hall had lived a normal productive life after committing a terrible crime. All he had to do was change his name and put some physical distance between himself and his previous life. And escape, of course.
The same can't be said of Tanis Ukena, 18, the former Subway employee who was accused of doping a police officer's soft drink. Even though the charges have been dropped and he's free, Ukena is never going to escape.
Do an Internet search of Ukena's name 17 years from now and his history will be there for anyone to peruse, including potential employers, girlfriends, and police departments.
It's not like Ukena has been proven guilty of what he's been accused. He certainly isn't guilty of aggravated assault, burglary, shoplifting, theft, destruction of public property, possession of drugs, intoxication, mail theft, receiving stolen property, distribution of weed and reckless driving.
I am. I did every single one of those things (some more than once) by the time I was Ukena's age. You thought I was kidding about having a checkered past, didn't you? Well, I wasn't.
Know what the difference between Ukena and me is? I did all of that #%$@! as a juvenile and before the Internet. My juvenile record is wiped clean, the arrest records unavailable, and the paperwork buried.
Relatively speaking, it's like what I did never happened. You'd never know about it unless I told you — or you knew me back in the day.
Since my "mistakes," I've been a private security officer, a cop, served in the military, went on a mission, married an incredible woman and occupied several positions of trust. None of the background checks revealed my "true identity." At most, they learned only that I wasn't very bright in school.
Ukena and anyone else his age doesn't enjoy the luxury of completely starting over. Every time someone checks up on him now, he's going to flinch and wonder what they'll find and what it will make them think of him.
The best he can hope for is that people will investigate further and realize that it was all a big misunderstanding, that not only is he not a horrible person, but probably never has been.
There's a valuable lesson here for everyone. If you plan on doing something stupid today, you better not get caught. If you do, what happens to you will keep happening to you for the rest of your life.
But some people can never really change their past natures. It always influences the future somehow. I'm guessing that's how I got a fresh start and still ended up here.
Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley.