Utahn charged with dumping body of man who tried to rob him at gunpoint

A Utah man who allegedly shot and killed an intruder has been charged with two felonies for reportedly dumping the intruder’s body in a remote area of Tooele County.

Brandon Keith Burr, 38, has been charged in 3rd District Court with obstructing justice, a second-degree felony, and abuse or desecration of a human body, a third-degree felony.

Tooele City police said they were called to a report of shots fired near the intersection of Main Street and Utah Avenue on June 1, but found no evidence of a shooting. A day later, according to a probable cause statement, Tooele police received a report that a man “wanted to kill himself due to his involvement in a possible homicide.” The man — Austin D. Strehle, 23, of Tooele — told police there was a “deceased or seriously injured” man in a garage at 363 N. Garden Street, but when police searched the building they did not find a body.

A witness told police that on June 1, two suspects — later identified as Strehle and Devin Perryman, 24, of West Valley City — wearing masks and carrying guns entered the building and “demanded guns, money and drugs” from “several people” while pointing their weapons at them. The witness said Burr “had a firearm and confronted the suspects.”

According to a statement from Tooele police, an officer overheard Strehle tell a doctor at a mental health facility where he was taken that “he pistol whipped the first guy and told him to give him money, and then [Perryman] and Burr began shooting each other.”

Strahle — who has been charged in 3rd District Court with aggravated robbery and aggravated assault, first-degree felonies — went on to say that he had called police after the shooting, but did not tell them what happened. According to Tooele police, they later confirmed Strahle had made the original call reporting shots fired.

Burr was arrested Sunday and, according to the probable cause statement, told police that when the suspects demanded he and the others empty their pockets, he “grabbed” a revolver off a table in front of him and shot at one of the robbery suspects.” Burr was shot in the knee by one of the suspects, “which initiated a gunfight inside the home.”

When the shooting was over, Perryman was dead “on the floor of the building, while the other robbery suspect fled the scene.” Perryman was shot “multiple times … in the head, abdomen, and hand.”

According to police, Burr fled the scene but later returned “and collected all the shell casings.” Then Burr and “another individual” whose name has not been released took Perryman’s body to “a remote location in Delle,” where it was “later recovered by police.”

from The Salt Lake Tribune https://ift.tt/3dSSRwj