Man charged with murder of pizza delivery man 28 years later

A man was charged Thursday in connection with the death of a Utah mother who was fatally stabbed while working as a pizza delivery driver nearly three decades ago. The Salt Lake County Prosecutor’s Office made the announcement.

Donald Eugene Younge Jr. was charged with murder, aggravated kidnapping and robbery in connection with the death off Lisa Redmond, 36, who was found dead on the side of the road on December 9, 1996, prosecutors said in the announcement.

Redmond was still wearing her Pizza Hut uniform when her body was found, the district attorney’s office said. Her colleagues told West Valley City police detectives that she had been making deliveries in her pickup truck, but the vehicle was found in a parking lot just over a mile from her body. a statement of probable cause shared by the prosecutors.

Redmond’s body was discovered about 11 minutes after she left the store to make a delivery. Detectives searching the truck found a bloody knife behind the driver’s seat and noted signs of a struggle, the document said. Evidence of blood under the truck suggested Redmond had been run over.

Medical examiners determined Redmond’s death was a homicide caused by blunt force injuries to the head, torso and extremities, depending on the probable cause, according to the probable cause document.

The case would remain unsolved until March 2019, when DNA from blood found on the seat belt buckle in Redmond’s truck matched Younge, the attorney general’s office said. The prints on the knife also matched Younge’s.

Younge took the bus in 1996 and worked about four miles from the Pizza Hut where Redmond worked, which investigators said had two bus stops nearby.

Younge is currently serving a prison sentence of more than 30 years for two counts of aggravated assault and second-degree robbery in an unrelated case, prosecutors said in the announcement.

According to reports from local news outlet KSLYounge was convicted in 2010 of assaulting a 23-year-old University of Utah student as he walked home from campus. The incident happened about a month before Redmond was found dead.

Prosecutors noted in a motion to dismiss that Younge also remains a suspect in a separate 1999 murder investigation in Utah in which a 22-year-old University of Utah theater student was stabbed in her apartment. The case has been put on hold.

The no bail application also stated that Younge had been charged with three murders in 1999 and 2000, and was suspected of a fourth – a series of murders known as the “garbage bags” murders in which women were found dead in garbage bags in Illinois. That case was dismissed due to credibility issues with one of the witnesses, according to KSL.