KEARNS – Newspaper clippings and KSL news archive footage tell the story of a robbery, kidnapping and murder case that has dragged on for decades as the convicted killer has sought to avoid his death sentence.
The Crime
It was near the intersection of 4700 South and 4000 West in Kearns that 26-year-old Maurine Hunsaker was kidnapped from her job as a gas station attendant during a robbery on a Sunday night in February 1986.
Investigators found $70 missing from the register. Video of the ‘Gasamat’ attendant station shows an open cash register and a cigarette burnt to ash in a tray. Hunsaker disappeared between 8:35 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., law enforcement told journalists.
“A customer notified authorities after he tried to pay for gas, but found no one at the station,” The Daily Herald reported.
Investigators working on the case told KSL reporters at the time that about an hour after being taken, Hunsaker was allowed to place a call to her husband.
“She indicated that she was alright at that point and there was an indication that she would probably be released sometime today,” a law enforcement official told KSL that night. “We’re waiting and we have people out in the field and other places right now that we think are necessary to be covered.”
But Hunsaker was never released. Instead, her body was found near a campground up Big Cottonwood Canyon. Investigators said she’d been tied to a tree, strangled, and her throat slashed…