LOGAN — Almost two months before vanishing from her Hyrum home, Trisha Ann Autry complained to family and friends about being stalked by a man she knew only as "Sam."
The 15-year-old girl said Sam would follow her and a friend home from school, making sexually suggestive and "off-color" comments, according to the girl's mother.
Thursday, more than a year after Autry was last seen and nearly two months after the teen's jawbone was unearthed at a Cache County wildlife research facility, prosecutors convinced 1st District Judge Clint Judkins that probable cause exists to believe "Sam" is actually a 28-year-old Hyrum man named Cody Lynn Nielsen.
Judkins ordered Nielsen to stand trial on a charge of capital murder; obstructing justice, a second-degree felony; and desecration of a human body, a third-degree felony.
Nielsen was originally charged with first-degree felony murder, but Cache County Attorney Scott Wyatt amended the charge to capital murder last week.
"From the very beginning we were looking at (upgrading the charge), but we didn't want to overstate our position," Wyatt said. "We wanted to get this thing filed and get it moving."
Wyatt did not indicate whether his office will seek the death penalty against Nielsen.
The Autry family called police after Trisha failed to return home June 24, 2000. At one time the family believed Trisha met a man on the Internet and had run away from home.
A private investigator hired by the family suggested storing Trisha's hairbrush in a plastic bag, should it ever be needed for evidence.
The hairs on that brush now offer one of the few direct links between Trisha and Nielsen.
Execution of a search warrant on Nielsen's home, vehicles and shed turned up a tile scraper and a pair of coveralls with strands of red hair that appear to match Trisha's. Preliminary reports indicate the hairs do belong to the girl, Wyatt said, and the samples have been sent to the state crime lab for DNA testing.
Police seized 59 items from Nielsen's property, including blood and tooth samples. Most of the items are still being analyzed, Wyatt said.
At the same time searchers discovered Trisha's jawbone buried about 10 feet underground at Nielsen's former workplace, they also discovered the girl's tennis shoes and bra. JoAnn Autry identified the clothing items as having belonged to her daughter.
Utah Medical Examiner Todd Grey testified that the jawbone was "remarkably clean" and said someone would have had to intentionally remove the tissue. Marks on the bone indicate it was cut with a knifelike object or a mechanical saw, or both, he said.
Two days after the first dig, police searched a second site at the research center where, prosecutors contend, Nielsen started a fire in October 2000, Jensen said.
Several hundred burned bone fragments were found at the site, 230 of which turned out to be human fragments. The others appeared to belong to animals.
Grey determined they are likely the remains of only one person, a female between the ages of 16 and 23.
The remains contained fragments from the skull, vertebrae, collarbone, rib, both arms, hip, thigh, leg, hand and foot, Grey said.
The day he was arrested in connection with Trisha's murder, Nielsen made a telephone call to his sister from the Cache County Jail, Wyatt said.
Prosecutors Thursday played a recording of the May 15 conversation, in which Nielsen said he was accused of Trisha's murder.
"This is something . . . it happened awhile ago, and they just charged me for it," he said. "I'm the only one who knows.
"I didn't mean it. It was an accident," he said.
Defense attorney Shannon Demler said the recording is just one of many and maintains it was taken out of context.
"It's real easy to pick a couple lines" out of the conversation and make it look bad for Nielsen, Demler said.
Defense attorneys maintain prosecutors have little to go on other than circumstantial evidence.
No witnesses ever saw Trisha and Nielsen together, Demler said, and no fingerprints exist to prove Trisha was ever with Nielsen. Further, he said, nothing proves Trisha was raped, kidnapped or tortured, something prosecutors are using to support the capital murder charge against Nielsen.
"If our side of the case is told, it will take some of those problems (with the state's case) away," Demler said.
Nielsen also stands accused of two separate first-degree felony rapes, allegedly involving Trisha's 15-year-old friend and a 23-year-old Box Elder County woman. He is expected to plead to the rape charges, unrelated felony theft charges and Trisha Autry's murder Aug. 20.
E-MAIL: awelling@desnews.com