Suspect in custody in Mt. Pleasant murder case
Robert Stevens
Managing editor
11-22-2016
UTAH COUNTY—Investigators into the murder of a Mt. Pleasant man, Wesley Dee, Nay, have a suspect in custody, a knife with Nay’s blood on it and an image that appears to show Nay digging his own grave.
Since Nay’s burned body was discovered by hunters in a shallow grave near Indianola, just over the border of Sanpete Country in Utah County, the Utah County Sheriff’s Office has been investigating his death as a homicide, with assistance from the Sanpete County Sheriff’s Office.
The Utah State Medical Examiner confirmed on Oct. 25 that there were signs of trauma to the head of the body found and that dental records showed the remains were Nay’s. They also confirmed that the body had cuts and stab wounds from some form of edged weapon.
On Nov. 15, Utah County Sheriff’s detectives arrested Raul Francisco Vidrio, 19, in connection with Nay’s death.
According to a warrant affidavit unsealed recently in 4th District Court, witnesses reported seeing Vidrio leaving a Mt. Pleasant home with Nay on Aug. 29.
Vidrio was already in police custody at the time officers launched their investigation into Nay’s murder. He had been arrested on Sept. 1 in Sandy in a pickup truck that had been reported stolen.
According to the warrant affidavit, among items found in the truck was a backpack that contained a large fixed-blade knife in a leather sheath. Investigators said DNA analysis confirmed the knife and sheath had Nay’s blood on them.
Investigators also found shovels, a pick-axe and gasoline containers in the truck. According to the affidavit, Vidrio admitted to detectives that one of the shovels belonged to him. And the owner of the truck told police none of those items belonged to him.
Vidrio’s cell phone was confiscated during his initial arrest on Sept. 1. After obtaining a search warrant to pull data from the phone, investigators recovered an image that appears to be Nay digging his own grave.
Utah County sheriff’s deputies confirmed that the clothes Nay was wearing in the cell phone image were the same ones witnesses described Nay as wearing on the last day they saw him.
According to the affidavit, Vidrio told police that on Aug. 29 he and Nay “drove around town through the night, used drugs (methamphetamine and marijuana) and eventually ended up” at another house in Mt. Pleasant.
When investigators went to the Mt. Pleasant house that Vidrio referred to during questioning, the resident reportedly said that Nay had been there on the night in question and had gotten into an argument with another man for “accusing Mr. Nay of being a sex offender or pedophile, which upset Mr. Nay.”
In a second interview, the same resident admitted that Vidrio had also borrowed a chainsaw from him and told him it “would be used to cut wood to burn evidence and flesh.” The affidavit also states that the resident said Vidrio had asked him “if he had ever seen flesh burn.”
According to court records, a man called the Sanpete County Sheriff’s Office on Oct. 3 and reported, “he’d heard that Mr. Nay had been shot, dumped in a hole and burned.”
Detective Chad Nielson of the Sanpete County Sheriff’s Office investigated the report. He filed a separate affidavit in support of a search warrant in 4th District Court. “During the course of this investigation,” Nielson stated in the affidavit, “we conducted several interviews and took several reports from concerned citizens. More than one of these people reported hearing Wesley (Nay) (had been) set on fire and buried in a hole.”
Vidrio was booked into the Utah County Jail on charges of criminal homicide, a first-degree felony; obstruction of justice, a second-degree felony; and abuse or desecration of a dead human body, a third-degree felony. A 4th District Court judge has set bail for Vidrio at $500,000 cash only. The investigation remains active.
