Colorado man pleads guilty to 1970 murder in central Utah

A Colorado man on Tuesday pleaded guilty to the fatal stabbing of a Price woman — 46 years after he was first charged.

Loretta Marie Jones, 23, was found dead on the living room floor of her home by her 4-year-old daughter on July 30, 1970.

On Tuesday, Thomas Edward Egley, 76, of Rocky Ford, Colo,, entered a guilty to plea to once count of second-degree felony murder in connection with Jones' death, before 7th District Court Judge George Harmond.

In exchange for his guilty plea, Carbon County prosecutors dropped a first-degree felony rape charge they had also filed.

Egley faces a possible punishment of 10 years to life in prison when sentenced on Nov. 22, court records show.

Jones' murder went unsolved for decades, but the case was reopened by the Carbon County Sheriff's Office at the behest of her daughter in 2009.

Court papers say that when her body was exhumed earlier this year, Egley asked one of his neighbors in Colorado "how long DNA evidence and semen lasted."

The neighbor convinced Egley to confess to police.

Investigators say Egley, who had dated Jones, told his neighbor he had stabbed Jones because he was angry at her for refusing sex. Egley said that after he stabbed Jones, she fell on the living room floor, where he had sex with her and then slit her throat, court papers say.

An autopsy found Jones died from "internal bleeding, caused by stab wounds in the pulmonary artery, lungs and heart," court papers say.

Investigators say Egley tossed the knife used in the slaying in the river behind a Price hotel and burned the clothes he was wearing.

Egely had been arrested and charged with Jones' death in 1970, but the case was tossed out by a judge for lack of evidence.

jdobner@sltrib.com