At his sentencing in May for the cold-case murder of a Woods Cross woman, Edward Lewis Owens stunned a packed courtroom by announcing that he did kill Karin Strom, then insisting that he killed her as part of a murder-for-hire financed by the woman's husband.
However, after an extensive investigation, Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings is not convinced there is any credible evidence against Steve Strom, the husband Owens was referring to.
"We have not been able to get sufficient corroboration of Ed Owens' statements to put together a case against Steve Strom," Rawlings said Wednesday.
Owens' account of events is simply "not credible," Rawlings said.
Owens, 58, is serving a prison term of five years to life for the 1980 strangling death of the 25-year-old woman in her home while her husband was at work.
Owens told 2nd District Judge John Morris at Owens' May 22 sentencing that three or four months before Karin Strom was killed, her husband had cooked up a plot to have her murdered.
Owens said Steve Strom offered him half of the woman's life insurance money if Owens would kill Karin Strom.
With all eyes on him in the courtroom and some spectators gasping aloud, Owens claimed he actually went to the Strom house to warn Karin Strom of her husband's plans because Owens began to have misgivings about the whole thing.
"There was an argument between her and I, and I ended up strangling her," Owens said. "The way I got in, Mr. Strom gave me the key to her house."
Rawlings, however, said the details Owens has provided simply do not add up.
When Owens was sentenced, the judge ruled out any mention of the two times he was acquitted years ago in relation to other crimes.
Following the sentencing, a woman who identified herself only as Kimberly spoke to reporters and claimed Owens had kidnapped her, beaten her with a rock and raped her in 1973 in California. She insisted that Owens had gone on trial in Torrance, Calif., and was acquitted of attempted murder, kidnapping, robbery and rape "because his family had an alibi for him."
At one point in the Karin Strom case, which went unresolved until this year, Steve Strom was charged with the death of his wife, but the charges were dismissed.
e-mail: lindat@desnews.com