42-year-old closed case solved by SLC police

SALT LAKE CITY – Salt Lake City Police have solved a 42-year-old closed case.

In 1979, Sandra Matott disappeared without a trace, leaving behind several children, including her son Darrell Haymes.

“I lost hope two decades ago that we were getting closer,” Haymes told FOX 13 on Friday. “What I remember the most is that she was a really good mom.”

There had been no trace of her for nearly 33 years – until 2012, when the Millard County Sheriff’s Office entered the description of a body found without teeth, along with a watch and a ring, in the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) which matches Matott’s description.

Millard County had never resolved the case, but was also seeking new details on some of their older cold cases.

It took nine more years of investigation, DNA testing, and technological advancements to finally match the “Jane Doe” to Matott.

This finding, 42 years later, makes it the oldest closed missing persons case ever resolved by the SLC Police Department.

“I’m thinking, well, about closing… Because without a body or remains or something, there’s always that question,” Haymes said. “So I’m glad they didn’t close the case.”

SLCPD detective Micheal Ruff was in the room when they broke the news to Haymes and his sisters.

“It’s a special moment,” Ruff said, adding that detectives don’t always see their case come full circle like this.

However, the question of who murdered Matott remains unresolved.

In 1984, infamous serial killer Henry Lee Lucas confessed to killing Matott. However, Salt Lake police said, “his claims were vague and detectives were unable to verify his confession.”

Lucas then retracted hundreds of confessions and was known to take ownership of murders he didn’t commit.

Salt Lake City Police and the Millard County Sheriff’s Office believe Matott’s husband Warren also knew more than he ever told police, mostly because after reporting his disappearance , the detectives could not reach him again.

“She was reported missing in 1979 by her husband… Our detectives tried to contact him and they couldn’t, so the case was closed for a while,” Ruff said, adding that shortly after afterwards, the case “was reopened, but there was not much to do.

Police were never able to link enough evidence to convict Warren Matott, but believe he was somehow involved.

Warren Matott and Henry Lee Lucas have since died.

While justice cannot be served in this case, Haymes just feels like the shutdown is what his family needed.

“At the police station, I shed a tear and hadn’t cried for my mother in years,” he said. He added that his sisters, who were much younger, had become much more moved by finally knowing the truth.

Haymes frankly admitted that not having a mother separated the family because there was “no one to go to for Sunday dinner,” adding that “without a mother to keep you together I think siblings all separate when you grow up and have families of your own. “

But in a way, their mother, even 42 years after she left, is bringing their family together.

Haymes says he, his sisters and aunts are on the phone more than ever now that there is a shutdown, even talking about when their families can reunite.

“I’m happier to have the closure, and I talk to the sisters and stuff like that,” he said. “She’s been missing all this time and walked away, but now with the closure we’re getting back together.”

Matott’s remains are still in the medical examiner’s office and can now be turned over to the family, who plan to cremate them and make jewelry with them in order to take a piece of their mother with them now that the case is finally over. close.