This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
A 23-year-old man charged in the killing of a Utah Transit Authority employee will make his first appearance in a Wyoming courtroom this week.
Derek James "D.J." Harrison is charged in Wyoming with kidnapping and killing Kay Porter Ricks last May. His extradition from the Utah State Prison to the Lincoln County jail in Kemmerer, Wyo., was completed on Tuesday, according to the Lincoln County Attorney.
Now that Harrison is in Wyoming, he is scheduled to be in court on Thursday morning.
Lincoln County Attorney Spencer Allred said that at that hearing, Harrison will be advised of the charges filed against him and bail will be a set.
Harrison was sentenced to the Utah prison in October after he pleaded guilty to five counts of aggravated kidnapping, a first-degree felony, admitting that on May 10 he kidnapped a Centerville woman and her four teenager daughters, alongside his now-deceased father, 52-year-old Flint Harrison.
Flint Harrison had also faced the same charges in Wyoming and Utah, but he hanged himself in his Davis County jail cell in July.
DJ Harrison faces charges that carry the potential for the death penalty, but Allred has not said whether prosecutors will seek the defendant's execution.
After the Centerville assaults, the Harrisons eluded a police manhunt and fled Utah two days later, authorities say, on the same day that Ricks, 63, and his work truck disappeared.
Prosecutors say the Harrisons beat Ricks to death along a remote Wyoming roadside. An autopsy found that Ricks died from head injuries and his throat was slashed.