This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Curtis Dale Hardinger placed a pistol on the bed. He told his girlfriend there was one way for her to leave.
She would have to shoot him.
The girlfriend, badly beaten, picked up the weapon and fired a bullet through his chest, according to a prosecutor's memo. Hardinger, 34, died at a hospital.
The beating and shooting happened on July 29, 2014. The Uintah County Attorney's Office filed paperwork earlier this month announcing it would not prosecute the girlfriend. The Tribune is not identifying her.
A memorandum from Chief Deputy Uintah County Michael Drechsel concluded the woman, then 38, acted in "justifiable self-defense." There was no evidence she initiated the altercation and "had no duty to retreat," he wrote.
Drechsel's memo describes the violent sequence that occurred at the home where the girlfriend lived with Hardinger north of Vernal near 2600 N. 500 East. Hardinger's two children also were there that night.
The girlfriend received a text message from another man while Hardinger was holding her phone, she later told deputies. She said Hardinger "snapped."
He threw his girlfriend into a wall, then began hitting, kicking and choking her, the memo says. Hardinger took phones away from his girlfriend and children and commanded the children to stay in another room.
The woman told police she lost consciousness multiple times; Hardinger would choke her, wait for her to regain consciousness and choke her again.
Hardinger told the woman the only way she could leave was to kill him, the memo says. Then he dragged her to the bedroom, where he made the similar statement and produced the handgun.
The bullet passed through Hardinger's chest, through a hallway wall, across a bedroom and through blinds and a window, the memo says. The document doesn't state the caliber or make of the pistol.
After the shooting, the girlfriend retrieved one of the children's phones and called 911. Investigators questioned her and the children. The memo describes the children corroborating that Hardinger assaulting his girlfriend. It also says the children heard Hardinger make a remark about his girlfriend having to shoot him.
The girlfriend "had bruising on her eyes (both the eyelids and the eyes themselves), her cheeks, her ears, her neck, the sides and back of her head, her shoulders, her arms, the side of her body, her back, her buttocks, her legs, and her feet," the memo says.
"Mr. Hardinger's actions constituted unlawful violence and force against [the girlfriend]," Drechsel wrote. "Under the circumstances, it was reasonable for [the girlfriend] to believe that her actions were necessary to prevent Mr. Hardinger from causing [her] additional serious bodily injury or killing her."
A search of Utah court records shows Hardinger had only a misdemeanor, non-violent criminal record.
—Tribune reporter Jessica Miller contributed to this report.
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