LOGAN — Prosecutor Brad Smith described Wednesday afternoon how a young gas station clerk working alone in the early morning hours of a spring day was "stabbed, brutalized, bound and bludgeoned to death."
"We use these words and they sound somewhat sanitary," said Brad Smith, recounting the death of Bradley Newell Perry back in 1984. "Let me make it clear, this was nothing of the sort."
Opening arguments began Wednesday in Logan's 1st District Court, where Glenn Howard Griffin is on trial on an aggravated murder charge in connection with the gas station slaying. The trial is expected to last late into next month. If convicted, Griffin could face the death penalty.
Smith made clear that the case of Perry's death, which happened at remote business off Highway 89 in Box Elder County, has been fraught with difficulties over the last two decades.
Two investigators who processed some of the evidence at the victim's family gas station have since died, he said, but noted that DNA taken from a blood-stained dollar bill matches up to Glenn Howard Griffin, the accused killer. He said the chance of a match is 1 out of 1.7 trillion.
"The chances of a random match are astronomically small."
Defense attorney Dee Smith did not dispute the brutality of Perry's death, but said it did not come at the hands of Griffin.
The dollar bill with the "red substance" is the cornerstone to the break in the case more than 21 years after the young clerk's body was found in the backroom of the business.
That morning, two Utah State University students later told officers they pulled up to the Perry Texaco Short Stop Convenience Store at 4 a.m. May 26, 1984 for some gas. When they got there, a man came out, pumped their gas, took an order for cigarettes and returned with four dollar bills in change.
One of those bills had a "wet, red substance" on the face and there was a similar substance on the man's clothing and shoes.
A court document says the two students likely arrived either during the robbery and killing, or shortly afterward.
The students drove straight to the police station and Perry's body was discovered in the backroom.
Smith disputed that the "red" stained dollar bill directly links Griffin to the crime, saying since the students attended school in Logan — where Griffin lived at the time — it could have come from anywhere.
"Powerful evidence was left at the scene, but not one piece of it belongs to Mr. Griffin."
Testimony will continue today in a trial the victim's mother said she thought would never happen.
"How could you after 20 plus years?" Claudia Perry said. "We always figured someday the Lord would take care of it."
"It's going to bring back some bad memories," said Newell Perry, the victim's father.
"We had to move on," Claudia Perry added. "Now we have to relive it. ... But our son deserves justice."
The Perry murder went cold years ago but was reopened by a Box Elder County sheriff's detective in 1997. Through modern technology, investigators said they linked DNA found on the bill to Griffin, who was arrested in 2005.
Another man, Wade Garrett Maughan, 53, also has been charged with capital murder in this case. A preliminary hearing has been set for Jan. 27-29.
E-mail: afalk@desnews.com