A grisly picture of torture and murder is what attorneys had hoped to keep from the public and media - at least until after the trial of two men charged with killing a Southern Utah State College student last fall.
Fourth District Judges Boyd L. Park and George E. Ballif, however, have ordered the unsealing of transcripts from a preliminary hearing for defendants Michael Anthony Archuleta and Lance Conway Wood. The two are charged with capital homicide in the Nov. 22, 1988, bludgeoning death of 28-year-old Gordon Ray Church, son of Delta City Councilman David Church.The victim's body, gagged and draped with tire chains, was found Nov. 23 in a shallow grave off I-15 near Kanosh, Millard County. An autopsy report presented during the preliminary hearing detailed numerous injuries to the body, including a broken arm, cuts on the neck, skull fractures and damage to the genitals.
Trial for Archuleta, 26, will begin Nov. 21 in Utah County before Ballif; Wood, 20, will be tried Feb. 20 before Park. The defendants will be tried later on related charges of aggravated sexual assault, aggravated kidnapping and object rape. Archuleta faces an additional charge of sodomy.
Millard County Justice of the Peace Ronald Hare ordered the preliminary hearing - held Jan. 24 and March 30 - closed and transcripts of the proceedings sealed. Millard County Attorney Warren Peterson and defense attorneys argued during a July hearing before Park and Ballif that release of the transcripts would impair the defendants' ability to get a fair trial.
At the same hearing, attorneys representing the Deseret News, Salt Lake Tribune and Society of Professional Journalists told the judges that Hare had ignored proper legal procedure in closing the preliminary hearing. They asked that the transcripts be released.
Park and Ballif obliged this week and said that within two weeks they would prepare a written decision outlining their reasons for unsealing the transcripts.
"The access granted the media is to those matters which they could have reported had the court been open and the media representatives permitted to attend," Park and Ballif said in the order. The order, however, does not apply to investigatory documents or documents prepared for the issuance of search warrants.
Transcripts from the preliminary hearing, obtained by the Deseret News, detail numerous self-incriminatory statements by Archuleta and Wood made to friends and Millard County Sheriff's investigators shortly after the murder. Investigators testified at the hearing that while both men admitted to being present when Church was murdered, each accused the other of the slaying.
The transcripts also reveal details leading up to the murder and arrest of the defendants.
Millard County Deputy Sheriff Charles Stewart testified that Archuleta admitted being picked up by Wood and Church in Cedar City, after which Church drove the men to a nearby canyon. That is where, according to statements by both Archuleta and Wood, Church was forced into the car's trunk after his neck was cut and his arm broken.
The victim was then taken to an area south of Dog Valley near Kanosh, where he was beaten with tire irons and a jack, according to the transcripts.