Double killer Edward Steven Deli escaped the death penalty during his June trial in Coalville. But he received another kind of death penalty from the Board of Pardons: life in prison without parole.
"This board orders you to spend the rest of your natural life in prison without possibility of parole," said Utah Board of Pardons member Mike Sibbett.Deli, 22, and Von Lester Taylor, 26, were convicted in the shooting deaths of Kaye Tiede, 51, Humble, Texas, and her mother, Beth Potts, 72, Murray, during a Dec. 22 burglary of their vacation cabin near Oakley, Summit County.
Taylor was convicted of first-degree murder and was sentenced to die by lethal injection. Deli, after a one juror held out against first-degree murder, was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to seven consecutive life terms. The judge recommended he never be freed.
Sibbett agreed. "It was a terrible crime," he said, "and I have made a recommendation that Mr. Deli spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole."
Taylor also appeared before the Board of Pardons but was not considered because of the automatic appeals of his death sentence.
The family of the two victims greeted the news with a sense of both relief and sadness.
"I have very mixed emotions about it," said Claudia Goates, whose mother and sister were killed. "We are very pleased because the community won't be endangered further, that he cannot perpetrate another crime.
"But when I left there was a feeling of depression. No matter what kind of heinous crime he committed, to spend the rest of his life in prison, at age 22, is a horrifying thought. But that is why the board exists, to protect the public. And that is what was done."
Both Deli and Taylor were on parole from the Utah State Prison at the time of the killings. They escaped from a halfway house on Dec. 14, 1990. The two men broke into the cabin while the Rolf Tiede family was away and spent the night opening the family's Christmas presents and videotaping themselves.
Five members of the family, most of them from Humble, Texas, returned to the cabin Dec. 22 and were confronted at gunpoint by the two men.
Taylor shot and killed Kaye Tiede, 51, and Beth Harmon Tidwell Potts, 72, and kidnapped Linea Tiede, 20, and Trisha Tiede, 16. Rolf Tiede was shot in the face and in the temple and left for dead.
To cover up the crime, the two men poured gasoline over the bodies and around the cabin and started a fire before escaping in the Tiede's car. Despite his wounds, Rolf Tiede managed to climb aboard a snowmobile and summon help.
The two men were arrested following a chase with police officers.
"The crime speaks for itself," Sibbett said. "It was senseless and brutal, something society should not expect and cannot tolerate."
Goates agreed. "He forfeited his right to be free, he showed he has no regard for human life," she said. "You cannot sacrifice the many for the one. I have compassion for him. It is depressing. But what happened had to happen."
"Still, there is no satisfaction in it. Nothing good comes out of a heinous crime like this."
Goates said her family is now beginning to put their lives back together. "The damage has been done, and it's not something that disappears over night. But we are getting on with our lives. Time will help that."