Utah County sheriff's investigators want to identify a woman who could have information about the murder of a retired Brigham Young University professor in Payson.
The sheriff's office released a picture from a security camera at the Fast Gas store in Salem taken on the night that Kay Mortensen was murdered in his Payson Canyon home.
Sheriff's Lt. Mike Brower stressed the woman is not a suspect, but a potential witness.
"We want to talk to her about a suspicious activity [related to the case]," Brower said. "It's just involving Kay Mortensen's murder itself."
Mortensen was killed Nov. 16. His son and daughter-in-law, Roger and Pamela Mortensen, were named last month as "persons of interest" in the case. Brower said the couple are identified as such because they have made inconsistent statements to investigators and have stopped cooperating with police.
Greg Skordas, Roger and Pamela Mortensen's attorney, disagreed that his clients were uncooperative.
Brower said the county's interest in Roger Mortensen is not related to his criminal history, which includes charges of domestic violence and threatening a group of Boy Scouts with a handgun.
"We are aware of the history but that's not why he's considered a person of interest in our case," Brower said.
According to court records, on July 13, 1996, Roger Mortensen rode on a four-wheel ATV past the Scouts and their leaders on the Mineral Basin Road in American Fork Canyon. Mortensen then stopped, pulled a handgun from his vehicle and went over to the group, pointing it at the head of one of the leaders and yelled at him. The group drove to the Timpanogos Cave camp site and called authorities.
Police found Mortensen with a .22 caliber handgun, a marijuana pipe and a radar unit reportedly stolen from the Utah Highway Patrol, where Mortensen had worked. In a plea agreement, he plead no contest to a theft charge and threatening to use a weapon in a fight, and was sentenced to probation and fined $500.
In 1997, while still on probation, Mortensen was charged with theft while working at Eagle Hardware in Orem. A jury found Mortensen guilty but mentally ill; his attorneys argued Mortensen suffered a brain injury from a fall that affected his ability to function.
Mortensen was charged with domestic violence assault and supplying alcohol to a minor in February 2003. He entered a plea-in-abeyance agreement, where he pleaded guilty to contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a Class B misdemeanor and agreed to have no contact with his ex-wife and stepson. In return, prosecutors dropped the assault charge and agreed to dismiss the case if Mortensen completed the terms of the agreement. The charge has since been dismissed.
Tribune reporter Nate Carlisle contributed to this story.
