Corrections officers last month tried to revoke the parole of Summit County double-homicide suspect Von Lester Taylor after learning he had been seen in an Ogden gun store, officials said.
The Board of Pardons, however, found insufficient evidence to return Taylor to prison. Instead, he was transferred from an Ogden halfway house to a Salt Lake halfway house, where he met Edward Steven Deli, said Corrections Inspector General Nick Morgan.Taylor, 25, and Deli, 21, have been charged with two counts of capital homicide in the slayings of Beth Harmon Tidwell Potts, 76, and her daughter, Kaye Tidwell Tiede, 49.
The men also are charged with attempted first-degree murder, aggravated kidnapping, arson and other felonies in the shooting and wounding of 51-year-old Rolf Tiede and the kidnapping of his two daughters.
The men were arrested and the girls rescued unharmed following a chase with Summit County lawmen.
Meantime, parole and court records show both men had been ordered to undergo mental counseling as a condition of parole.
Acquaintances of Deli said they believed he was a man "running from himself" who joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and an all-Mormon fraternity at the University of Utah before he was arrested in 1989 on arson charges.
Don Blanchard, vice chairman of the Utah State Board of Pardons, said the board had been asked to revoke Taylor's parole for a weapon violation.
Taylor was living at an Ogden halfway house at the time, on parole after serving 16 months of a five-year-to-life sentence for aggravated burglary. He was arrested in 1989 in Washington County after a homeowner wrestled away a gun Taylor was carrying and held him until police arrived.
"The board ruled . . . that there was not sufficient probable cause to justify issuance of a warrant," he said. "From the information we had, he was not in possession of a weapon."
Summit County court documents allege Taylor shot the two women. Blanchard said the board paroled Taylor and Deli, who was serving a zero-to-five year term for arson, based partly on a lack of prior criminal histories.