SALT LAKE CITY — A man currently being held in the Utah State Prison was charged Friday with killing a Price man who was found dead near a gas field in Emery County in May.
Brandon Michael Samples, 37, is charged in 7th District Court with murder, a first-degree felony; three counts of obstructing justice, a second-degree felony; and abuse or desecration of a dead body, a third-degree felony.
On May 2, the body of William Randy Jones, 61, was discovered by a gas field worker near a pump on Morland-Hiawatha Road. Jones had been formally reported as missing earlier that day, but friends had not seen him since April 28.
Jones suffered serious head trauma, possibly from being beaten with a baseball bat, according to a pair of search warrant affidavits filed in May.
Friends of Jones told investigators that they had been with him on April 28 in a motel room in Price when Samples called to say he was coming over.
“Brandon told William that he was coming over to the motel to pick up William so they could go for a ride and talk,” a warrant states. One friend advised Jones “not to go with Brandon because she had a bad feeling about him going with Brandon alone.”
Jones said there was nothing to worry about, and shortly after, Samples and his girlfriend Anna Brewer arrived, police say.
Days later, deputies went to Brewer’s residence, where they found both Samples and Brewer. An agent from Adult Probation and Parole also went with the group because Samples was on parole. He was given a drug test on scene and tested positive for methamphetamine and was taken into custody, an affidavit states.
When Brewer was interviewed, she told investigators that on the night she and Samples picked up Jones, they drove to her house to show Jones a storage shed. But on the way back, they took the “back road to Price,” a warrant states.
“The road they took went through the Morland area. Anna said that they pulled off the road and Brandon suggested going rock hunting. According to Anna they do this activity regularly. Anna said when they got out of the car, she walked away from the car to start hunting. A short time later she heard William yelling. She turned around and shined her flashlight toward the direction of the sound. She witnessed Brandon hitting William with a baseball bat. Anna said Brandon killed William with the bat and left him lying on the ground,” investigators wrote in the warrant.
Brewer said Samples used two different bats on Jones because the first one broke, according to the affidavit. She also said that the next day, she and Samples “went back up to the scene and Brandon cut the ring finger off of Williams’ left hand and took the ring that was on that finger,” the warrant states.
Samples threw one bat out the car window as they drove away, and “according to Anna, Brandon used a saw to cut up the second bat at her trailer in the front room. She told us that there are metal shavings in her carpet and in her vacuum,” according to the warrant.
Anna Nicholl Brewer, 36, of Huntington, was charged on Aug. 21 with obstructing justice, a second-degree felony. During her initial appearance in court on Sept. 4, a plea deal in the case was announced. Brewer pleaded no contest to the charge, but sentencing was put off until March 3, 2020.
According to her statement of guilt filed in 7th District Court on Friday, prosecutors will recommend probation for Brewer at sentencing in exchange for her testimony in court against Samples.
Samples has a lengthy criminal history, mainly for theft and burglary-related convictions, according to court records.