This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated.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.
There were only two people standing in the grassy field near Fort Duchesne on April 11 of last year.
Elvis Zachary Olsen, who died there after being shot three times. And Jesse Anthony Saenz, the 24-year-old man who was convicted by a jury last month of murdering the man.
But even after a police investigation and a weeklong display of evidence at Saenz's trial, Uintah County Attorney Mark Thomas said Wednesday there is still one question left unanswered: Why did Saenz do it?
"Any motive that we've ever considered is speculative," Thomas said. "Mr. Saenz didn't ever speak to us. The only other person we believe was present was the victim. None of the investigation revealed a specific motive."
Despite not knowing why Saenz shot and killed Olsen, an 8th District Court jury found Saenz guilty of murder, a first-degree felony, along with theft and possession of a dangerous weapon by a restricted person charges, both second-degree felonies. The jury deliberated for less than three hours before delivering its unanimous verdict Aug. 22.
Saenz faces up to life in prison when he is sentenced Oct. 21 by Judge Clark McClellan.
Police knew the two men knew each other. They helped a mutual friend move a week before the murder. They served time in jail at the same time. But Thomas said the only thing they knew about why the two men met on that April day 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, lying in the grassy 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. At trial, defense attorney Ryan Houlton criticized the police investigation, pointing out as an example that officers handled the gun with their bare hands.
"[There are] reasonable doubts in our minds in what happened," Houlton told the jury during closing arguments, according to a video clip of the hearing provided by a pool photographer. "The problem is, they [police] thought this was 'good enough.' "
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