A Salt Lake County man arrested this week and jailed on a rape charge has been questioned in the shooting death of his wife in Tooele County.
Doty Lyn Brown, 28, was arrested Monday at a downtown condominium complex, where he was painting.Tooele County sheriff's detectives questioned Brown about the disappearance of his wife, whose body was found March 24 in the mountains about 20 miles southwest of Tooele.
The woman, who had been shot in the head with a large-caliber weapon, was not identified until this month, when a relative saw a Deseret News story that showed a reconstruction of her face.
Sandra Brown, originally of the Ogden area, was last seen alive Dec. 12 in Salt Lake City. But she had never been reported missing.
"That is a puzzlement," said Tooele County sheriff's Sgt. Alan James. "She was known to leave for periods of time. (Her family) just assumed it was one of those times that she just disappeared."
The Browns were married in Riverdale, Weber County, on May 7, 1988. They later lived on Elizabeth Street in Salt Lake City, where Sandra Brown in October obtained a job at The Enterprise, a weekly business newspaper.
A month earlier, Doty Brown had been charged in Box Elder County with stealing a semiautomatic rifle.
Doty Brown failed to appear for a preliminary hearing and a warrant was issued for his arrest.
Sandra Brown's boss, Mary Losse, told the Deseret News that she last saw Sandra on Friday, Dec. 9.
"She told me that she was very upset, that her husband had been picked up in Brigham City for possession of a stolen gun. He told her he bought it and didn't know it was stolen.
Sandra Brown asked Losse for a payroll advance so she could bail her husband out of jail. Sandra didn't show up for work the following Monday, making Losse think she took the money and ran.
Doty Brown remained in the Salt Lake County Jail on the rape charge and on the warrant out of Box Elder County.
He faces a hearing Tuesday on charges he raped a 16-year-old girl in May 1988. According to Salt Lake County sheriff's detective Brian Jackson, the girl was a friend of Doty's stepdaughter, the natural daughter of Sandra Brown.
The charge alleges that Doty Brown and a friend took the girls to an apartment in Salt Lake County, where Brown raped his stepdaughter's friend.
Following the incident, Jackson tried on several occasions to get Doty Brown to take a polygraph test. In November, he came to take the test but then refused. Jackson was unable to locate Doty Brown after that and filed the rape charge in January.
During the first part of January, Jackson received a call from a Box Elder sheriff's sergeant about a vehicle abandoned in a snowstorm. The vehicle was registered to Doty Brown and has since been reclaimed by its lienholder.