Ralph Menzies
Ralph Leroy Menzies was an American convicted murderer who was on death row in Utah for the 1986 murder of Maurine Hunsaker, a gas station attendant whom he kidnapped before slitting her throat. Menzies was convicted of the murder and sentenced to death on March 23, 1988. His scheduled September 5, 2025, execution was put on hold for a competency re-evaluation. Before the competency evaluation could be completed, Menzies died of natural causes.
When Douglas Stewart Carter's death sentence was overturned in May 2025, Menzies became Utah's longest-serving death row inmate, having been sentenced to death in 1988.
Early life and criminal history
Ralph Leroy Menzies was born in Utah, United States, on April 21, 1958. He came from a dysfunctional family. Menzies was reportedly subjected to relentless child abuse by his stepfathers: they assaulted him, refused to give him food, forced him to sleep in a small room with his sister for three years, and prevented him from going to school. As a result of the abuse, the early death of his biological mother, and his sister's need to take care of their younger brother, who was in poor health, Menzies grew up without a proper caretaker or parental figure. Menzies's school records showed that he had a poor track record of attendance.In 1976, Menzies was first convicted of aggravated robbery and sentenced to a term of five years to life in prison. Two years later, on July 6, 1978, Menzies and another prisoner, Johnny Ray Sloan, escaped from Utah State Prison, and a week later, on July 17, 1978, Menzies robbed and shot a taxi driver with a shotgun. For this crime, Menzies was put on trial, but his case was declared a mistrial after the jury deadlocked on the verdict in October 1978. Subsequently, in February 1979, Menzies was given another five years to life prison term for aggravated robbery, in addition to a concurrent sentence of one to 15 years for escaping prison. The ruling was upheld in 1980 after Menzies lost his appeal.
Four years later, Menzies was paroled on October 9, 1984, and he was caught a year later, in December 1985, for stealing Christmas decorations. Menzies pleaded guilty to attempted theft on February 10, 1986, and he was scheduled for sentencing on March 11, 1986. He was subsequently released on bail on February 20, 1986.
Murder of Maurine Hunsaker
Disappearance and death of Hunsaker
On February 23, 1986, 26-year-old Maurine Forschen Hunsaker went missing from her job at a gas station in Kearns, Utah. During the evening, Hunsaker's husband, Jim, called her, but she did not answer the phone. When Jim arrived at her workplace that night, he found that his wife, her purse, and US$116 from the cash register were missing. Later, at around 11:05 p.m., Jim received a phone call from Hunsaker, who sounded upset and scared. Hunsaker reportedly told her husband that she was kidnapped by someone who wanted to rob her, and that she would be released soon. An officer who joined Jim for the phone conversation heard Hunsaker say that she was robbed. However, the phone call was cut before both Jim and the officer could ask her any further questions.Two days later, on February 25, 1986, near the Storm Mountain picnic area in Big Cottonwood Canyon, a hiker discovered Hunsaker's body. Her throat was slit, and her wrists were covered with ligature marks, suggesting she had been tied up, likely to a nearby tree with scuffed bark. An autopsy report showed that Hunsaker died as a result of ligature strangulation, and the slit wound had a contributory effect to her death.
Investigations and arrest of Menzies
Subsequently, the police investigations managed to link Menzies to the murder. Menzies, who was booked on unrelated burglary charges and detained on February 24, 1986, was found to have four of Hunsaker's identification cards in his possession, after a jailer found them in a laundry hamper located in the changing room Menzies used during the screening. Furthermore, two high-school students, Tim Larrabee and Beth Brown, saw two people at Storm Mountain on the morning of February 24 after Hunsaker's disappearance; one of these people matched Hunsaker's description, and the other, whom Larrabee described as a "White male" with black curly hair and beard, was aged 25 to 36, weighed approximately and was tall, roughly fit the description of Menzies.Additionally, Troy Denter, a friend of Menzies, told police that he loaned his car, a cream-colored 1974 Chevrolet, to him on the day of the murder, and Larrabee saw a car resembling Denter's on the same date he saw Hunsaker and Menzies together; Brown corroborated Larrabee's testimony after identifying the car as the one Menzies borrowed from Denter. When the police questioned Menzies after obtaining the witness testimonies, Menzies denied that he was involved in the murder. He said that on the night he borrowed Denter's car, he picked up a woman on State Street and then picked up his girlfriend, Nicole Arnold. Menzies claimed he drove around with both women in the car until they began to fight. Menzies said he dropped off Arnold first before he stopped at somewhere around 7200 West and 2400 South to drop the other woman off. Menzies stated that he returned home to talk to Arnold.
The police later searched Menzies's apartment and recovered Hunsaker's purse along with some of the money missing from the cash register at her workplace. A Buck knife was also retrieved; after comparison with the injuries, it was determined to be capable of inflicting the cuts on Hunsaker's neck. A DNA test later confirmed that Denter's car contained Hunsaker's fingerprint.
With the evidence obtained so far, Menzies was arrested and charged with the murder of Maurine Hunsaker. Sometime after Menzies was charged, more evidence linking him to the murder emerged. A cellmate of Menzies, Walter Britton, contacted the police and told them that Menzies admitted to killing Hunsaker during a conversation with him, and that Menzies allegedly claimed that slitting Hunsaker's throat gave him one of the biggest thrills of his life. However, the cellmate later signed a sworn declaration retracting this testimony.
The father of Nicole Arnold also discovered Hunsaker's Social Security card in his daughter's possession.
Murder trial
Menzies eventually stood trial before a jury on February 18, 1988. Menzies faced one count of aggravated murder and one count of kidnapping; Salt Lake County prosecutors sought the death penalty under Utah state law for the aggravated murder charge. Jury selection commenced on February 4, 1988.During the trial, the prosecution argued that Menzies had kidnapped and murdered Maurine Hunsaker from her workplace in the suburban town of Kearns, Utah and held her hostage at Big Cottonwood Canyon overnight, before he strangled Hunsaker and slit her throat, and sought a conviction of first degree murder, but the defense argued that Menzies should be convicted of second degree murder, a lesser charge that did not carry the death penalty, after they made arguments to dispute the elements of the charge, where the existence of a robbery or kidnapping during the course of murder was required to make it a capital crime.
On March 8, 1988, following a month-long trial, the jury found Menzies guilty of first degree murder and aggravated kidnapping. Menzies waived his right to be sentenced by a jury and allowed a judge to decide his sentence instead. The defense argued that Menzies should be spared the death penalty and handed a life sentence instead, as he was mentally ill and had had an abusive childhood and should be given judicial mercy on humanitarian grounds. However, the prosecution sought the death penalty, stating that it was appropriate because Menzies had a long criminal history, there was little to no rehabilitative effect observed during his previous prison stints, and he had continued to commit robbery even after being harshly dealt with by the law.
On March 23, 1988, Judge Raymond Uno sentenced Menzies to death for the murder of Hunsaker, and at the sentencing hearing Menzies chose death by firing squad as the method for his execution. His execution date was scheduled for May 20, 1988, but it was stayed pending mandatory review by the Utah Supreme Court.
Post-conviction legal process
After his sentencing in 1988, Menzies remained on death row for more than three decades, and throughout these years, he filed multiple appeals against his death sentence. It was scheduled to be carried out at least twice but delayed due to his appeals.On March 11, 1992, the Utah Supreme Court rejected Menzies's appeal for a retrial, finding that transcription errors caused by a reporter covering his trial did not provide sufficient grounds to reopen his case.
On March 29, 1994, the Utah Supreme Court dismissed Menzies's appeal and upheld his conviction and sentence.
A year later, Menzies received his death warrant, scheduling his sentence to be carried out via firing squad on June 2, 1995. On May 4, 1995, Menzies managed to obtain a stay of execution due to pending appeals. Hunsaker's parents expressed disappointment that Menzies would not be executed.
On May 16, 1996, Menzies's request for a federal public defender was rejected by U.S. Magistrate Ronald Boyce since his state appeals were not yet exhausted at this point.
Menzies was then scheduled to be executed on November 10, 2003, but the execution date was ultimately stayed for legal reasons. Another appeal was rejected on February 27, 2004. Menzies's motion requesting for DNA testing was rejected in October 2004. In response to the repeated delays, Hunsaker's oldest son Matt, who was ten when his mother died, lamented the long period of time that lapsed since his mother's murder and wanted justice to be served.
On April 2, 2012, Menzies's appeal over alleged ineffective representation by legal counsel was turned down by the 3rd District Judge Bruce C. Lubeck.
On September 23, 2014, the Utah Supreme Court rejected Menzies's appeal.
On January 12, 2019, U.S. District Judge Claire Eagan rejected an appeal.
On November 7, 2022, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed Menzies's appeal for post-conviction relief.
On October 18, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to allow Menzies's appeal, which exhausted all of his standard appeals.
On December 23, 2023, a lawsuit filed by Menzies and four other condemned prisoners against Utah's death penalty laws was dismissed by Judge Coral Sanchez of Utah's 3rd Circuit Court.