This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
A 25-year-old Vernal man was sentenced to prison Tuesday for killing another man — a slaying for which the motive remains a mystery.
Jesse Anthony Saenz was convicted by a jury in August of fatally shooting 24-year-old Elvis Zachary Olsen in a grassy field near Fort Duchesne on April 11 of last year.
Eighth District Judge Clark McClellan sentenced Saenz to the maximum by ordering a 15-years-to-life prison term for the murder to run consecutively to one-to-15-year terms for theft and possession of a dangerous weapon by a restricted person, which also were ordered to run consecutively.
The judge also ordered those convictions to run consecutively to Saenz's prior unrelated conviction of 15 years to life for aggravated sexual assault.
Saenz and Olsen knew each other, according to police.
They helped a mutual friend move a week before the murder. And they served time in jail at the same time.
But Uintah County Attorney G. Mark Thomas said the only thing known about why the two men met on the day of the fatal shooting was from a string of text messages sent between the two.
Saenz had asked Olsen to give him a ride to his grandfather's house and he'd give him $20, Thomas said. Olsen replied, "Sure."
No one knows what happened between the time the two men arrived at Saenz's grandfather's house and later when Saenz's mother and sister found Olsen dead in the field.
Olsen had been shot three times, Thomas said — once in the face, once in the chest and once in the arm. It appears that he was shot while in that field, Thomas said.
At the time of the slaying, Saenz was out on bail on an unrelated sex-abuse charge and was wearing an ankle monitor. By the time Olsen's body was discovered, Saenz had cut off his ankle monitor in Roosevelt and was missing, according to Thomas.
Nearly two weeks later, police found Saenz driving Olsen's car in Arizona. The gun used to kill Olsen was found in a duffel bag with Saenz, according to Thomas. Officials arrested him in Arizona, and he was brought back to Utah to face charges.
Saenz's defense attorney did not return phone calls from The Salt Lake Tribune seeking comment.
In the unrelated sex-abuse case, Saenz was accused of following a woman home on a shuttle bus from a nightclub early June 10, 2012, according to the charges. Once they got off the bus, he punched her twice and dragged her across a street to a spot outside an apartment complex, where he raped her and broke her cellphone, charges state.
Saenz pleaded guilty last June to first-degree felony aggravated sexual assault. He was sentenced to serve a term of 15 years to life in the Utah State Prison last August.
Twitter: @jm_miller