ROY — Police arrested two people Tuesday who they believe are connected to the slayings of a Roy woman and her son in their home last week.
Pamela Knight Jeffries, 56, and her son Matthew Roddy, 30, were found dead Monday — their bodies stuffed inside a closet in their mobile home at Karol's Mobile Home Estates, 3860 S. Midland Drive.
Roy Police Chief Greg Whinham confirmed for the Deseret News that Jeremy Lee Valdes, 33, and Miranda Mandy Statler, 26, were booked into the Weber County Jail in connection with the investigation. Valdes was jailed on a no-bail hold by Adult Probation and Parole, while Statler was taken into custody on several outstanding warrants, including one no-bail warrant.
"There is a connection between the victims and the suspects," Whinham said. "This isn't random."
Roy police were initially called to the home Nov. 25, after the residents called to report the theft of OxyContin and Valium, Whinham said.
Officers responded again later that same day after neighbors reported that family pets were outdoors longer than usual. Police were, however, were unable to make contact because no one answered the door.
Whinham said police tried again Saturday to make contact with Jeffries and Roddy, but no one answered the door. Because of the Thanksgiving holiday, Whinham said, investigators thought the family may have left town. Their vehicle was not in the driveway.
After the weekend, however, an endangered-persons alert was issued Monday, and the family car was found later that day abandoned in a parking lot in a residential area of Clearfield, the chief said.
"Once we had the vehicle and couldn't figure out why it was there, and couldn't attach occupants, we had enough information to get a judge to sign a warrant to let us get into the house," Whinham said.
Authorities had spent "a considerable amount of time" in the victims' home, Whinham said, conducting a "methodical" search when they found the pair's bodies inside a closet.
"Furniture had been moved to make the closet door less visible," Whinham said. "It was obvious the effort was made to put (Jeffries' and Roddy's bodies) out of view."
The chief declined to identify a preliminary cause of death, saying only that both bodies showed "indications of injury, of trauma." He said he will wait for autopsy results before releasing information about how the pair was killed.
When asked if the deaths were connected to the drug theft, the chief would only say that the investigation is in its initial stages. He said detectives continue to interview family members and neighbors to help them narrow down the time of death.
"That's one of the critical parts of the investigation, establishing a timeline," Whinham said. "There's a lot of that work that's still ongoing."
No formal charges have been filed against Valdes or Statler. However, court records show the two are no strangers to law enforcement.
In 2008, Valdes pleaded guilty in Weber County to possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute and failure to stop at the command of a police officer. He also pleaded guilty in Davis County to possessing a forged or altered prescription.
In each case, Valdes was given concurrent sentences of one year of home confinement, ordered to pay a fine and to spend three years on probation.
Statler also pleaded guilty in 2008 in Weber County to altering a prescription for a controlled substance and in Davis County to identity fraud and uttering a forged or altered prescription.
Statler was placed on probation for three years in each case and ordered to serve one year in jail, with an early release granted once space opened up in a Utah Department of Corrections halfway house.
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