Pizza Hut driver was found dead on road 28 years ago, Utah officials say. Man charged
Nearly three decades after a Pizza Hut delivery driver was found dead on a Utah road, a man has been charged in her killing, Utah prosecutors say.
Donald Eugene Younge Jr., who is currently in prison serving time for a separate sentence, was charged with multiple counts in the 1996 killing of Lisa Redmond, the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office said in a May 16 news release.
“Justice for Lisa and her family has been a long time coming,” Police Chief Colleen Jacobs said at a news conference, KUTV reported.
Redmond’s daughter, Megan, told FOX 13 News that while she doesn’t have many memories of her mother, as she was 8 at the time of her death, she remembers she was “very loving, very generous, really good with kids.”
“It’s been a really long time with no closure and no answers,” Megan told the outlet.
Pizza Hut did not immediately return McClatchy News’ request for comment May 20.
‘A genuine whodunit’
With little evidence and few leads, Jacobs said “this was a genuine whodunit from the beginning,” KUTV reported.
About 11 minutes after Redmond left a Pizza Hut on Dec. 9, 1996, “she was found in the middle of the road unconscious and not breathing,” court documents show.
The 36-year-old was pronounced dead on scene, according to court documents.
Co-workers told police Redmond was driving her GMC pickup truck, making deliveries in the city, prosecutors said.
Her truck, however, was nowhere to be found, according to prosecutors.
The following day, prosecutors said the truck was found a mile away. Prosecutors said the inside of the truck showed “signs of a struggle.”
There was also blood found underneath the truck, indicating Redmond had been run over with her own truck, according to prosecutors.
“Detectives found a knife in the truck, as well as a palm print and blood on a seat buckle,” prosecutors said.
Pizza Hut offered a $10,000 reward in 2000 for information about the case, KSL-TV reported.
The case, nonetheless, remained cold for years.
“(Investigators) thought they had exhausted looking at all the samples,” Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill said at a news conference, KSL-TV reported. “But these other pieces that were there were not tested.”
Blood on buckle leads to closure
As technology progressed, it opened up possibilities.
“With the advances in technology, we’ve been able to (put together) many of these missing pieces in this case,” Jacobs said, KSL-TV reported.
In 2019, a DNA sample from blood on the seat buckle submitted to the Combined DNA Index System came back as a hit to Younge, court documents show.
Investigators then obtained a DNA sample from Younge and compared it to the DNA sample from the blood on the seat buckle, according to prosecutors.
It was a match, prosecutors said.
Subsequently, prosecutors said police “manually compared the prints from the knife” to those of Younge and found they were a match.
Younge is facing multiple first-degree charges, including murder, felony aggravated kidnapping and felony aggravated robbery.
Younge is currently serving a 30-year or more sentence on “two counts of first-degree felony aggravated sex assault and one count of second-degree felony robbery,” according to prosecutors.
Younge “has a criminal history of aggravated sexual assault, robbery, assault, and obstruction,” court documents show. He is a suspect in multiple homicides, according to court documents.
“While cold case homicides leave an open wound, a continuing injury, today’s filing is a first step towards closure for the victim’s family and our community,” Gil said in the release.
Redmond’s daughter echoed the sentiment, telling FOX 13 News that if “justice is served” she knows her mother “mattered; she still matters.”
West Valley City is about a 10-mile drive southwest from Salt Lake City.
This story was originally published May 20, 2024 at 11:39 AM with the headline "Pizza Hut driver was found dead on road 28 years ago, Utah officials say. Man charged."
