It’s been more than 50 years since a man entered Natter’s Market outside Salt Lake City and shot clerk Carolyn Kingston and delivery man Michael Bown — killing him instantly and her two years later.
Even with so much time passed, investigators with the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office said they still plan to find the killer.
Detective Ben Pender, at a news conference Friday at the sheriff’s office, asked anyone who might know anything about the 1971 killings to come forward. He said investigators believe someone in the community has to know something that can help them solve the case.
Pender also shared a message for the killer: “I am pleading with you to come forward. I know from experience these types of cases … weigh very heavily on you.”
Whether the killer turns himself in or not, Pender said he will be found.
Killing in Natter’s Market
Pender said Kingston went into Natter’s Market — in an unincorporated part of the county that’s now Millcreek — on Sept. 2, 1971. Kingston, 31 at the time, was filling in for one of the cashier’s during a lunch break.
According to The Salt Lake Tribune’s reporting the next morning, Kingston didn’t mind helping out at the store, at 3065 S. 700 East. Her uncle owned the market, The Tribune wrote, and she lived next door to the business — and she would bring her sons, ages 2 and 4.
On this afternoon, Pender said, a man entered the store with a .22 caliber handgun, Pender said.
Investigators believe the man was there to rob the business. He was interrupted by a bread delivery person, Michael Bown, 23, Pender said.
Pender said the robber shot and killed Bown, then dragged Kingston to a back room and shot her as well. The Tribune reporters in 1971 wrote that the robber shot Kingston first, then Bown, “not suspecting a thing,” started making his deliveries when he was shot.
Bown died at the scene. Kingston lived for two years before dying from her injuries, at age 33, Pender said.
William Bryant — a delivery person for a different bakery, according to The Tribune’s report — walked into the store just as the killer was leaving, Pender said.
“Drop to the floor!” the shooter told him, according to The Tribune’s report. Pender said Bryant heard a couple of clicks as the gun failed. The shooter then ran off, according to the detective, but not before Bryant saw him well enough to form a description.
The Tribune’s report said Bryant called Salt Lake City police, who then contacted the county sheriff’s office, because the market was technically outside city limits.
Then, The Tribune wrote, Bryant heard someone crying in the back room. It was Carolyn Kingston’s 4-year-old boy, “holding his mother’s bloody head and sobbing,” The Tribune wrote.
Bryant told officers his would-be killer was tan, about 5-feet-7-inches tall, slender with black, curly hair, according to Pender. The detective said Bryant helped detectives draw a composite image.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Salt Lake County Sheriff’s office releases a composite of the possible killer and the type of watch he was wearing during a press conference asking for public’s help solving a 54-year-old cold case on Friday, Nov. 7, 2025. The unsolved homicide involving Carolyn Kingston and Michael Bown, during an apparent robbery at Natter’s Market where Bown was pronounced dead at the scene and Kingston succumbed to her injuries two years later.
Pender said the last customer in the market before the robbery also reported that the man had arrived in a dark blue or black 1959 Chevy Malibu.
Police also found a Timex watch at the scene, Pender said. Investigators believe Kingston struggled with the killer, and tore the watch from his wrist.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Salt Lake County Sheriff’s office holds a press conference asking for public’s help solving a 54-year-old unsolved case on Friday, Nov. 7, 2025, as they release images of the possible vehicle belonging to the suspect during a robbery that claimed the lives of two people.
Families remember the victims
Ron Bown, Michael’s brother, told reporters Friday that Michael was a father figure to him.
Ron Bown also shared his memory of the day Michael was killed — which started at 4:30 a.m., when Ron was the last person in their family to see Michael alive.
“I peered through a cracked open bathroom door and watched him shave,” he said.
Ron Bown said he snuck back to his room before Michael noticed him. He had hoped to toss a football with his brother later that afternoon, he said.
Instead, Ron said he remembered that his mother’s boss brought her home from work. She was sobbing, he said.
“I didn’t want to believe it,” he said. “I just always kept asking myself, ‘Why him? Why Mike?’”
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) The Salt Lake County Sheriff’s office holds a press conference asking for public’s help solving a 54-year-old unsolved case on Friday, Nov. 7, 2025, that claimed the lives of Carolyn Kingston and Michael Bown.
Carolyn Kingston, her family wrote in a letter read to reporters by Sheriff Rosie Rivera, went through several surgeries in the two years after the shooting, “trying to regain her life.”
The family wrote that “Carolyn never did recover from the shooting, and died two years later.” She was 33.
Her two sons have “lived their entire lives waiting for answers and justice,” the family wrote.
In the letter, the family said they still hope authorities will be able to find the killer — and echoed the detectives’ plea for anyone who might know something to come forward.