ST. GEORGE — Police have made an arrest in a nearly 22-year-old cold case homicide after a 44-year-old man allegedly walked into a Utah police station Sunday and confessed to the crime.
Brandon David Wright was arrested in Salt Lake City after he turned himself in to authorities at the Unified Police Department and proceeded to tell them he was responsible for the 1994 murder of 49-year-old Robert Edward Bushey in Kelso, Washington.
Wright is being held without bail, according to a fugitive from justice warrant filed Wednesday in Salt Lake City’s 3rd District Court. There is no statute of limitations for murder.
Kelso investigators traveled to Utah to interview Wright this week, according to a media statement issued by the Kelso Police Department Thursday.
Wright is expected to be extradited to Washington to face first-degree murder charges, the Kelso Police said in the statement.
In a recorded interview, Wright said he was in Kelso in 1994 after fleeing Utah where he was facing criminal charges, according to a probable cause affidavit filed in support of the arrest.
Wright told authorities he broke into a travel trailer belonging to a man named “Bob,” according to court documents, because he got hungry. Bushey interrupted the burglary, prompting Wright to hit the man in the head with a hammer and then stab him multiple times in the stomach.
After reviewing the case file of the original homicide investigation, Kelso detectives found Wright’s story to be consistent with evidence collected. Wright’s description of the scene also matched the crime scene.
According to Utah Court documents, Wright has a lengthy list of criminal charges in Utah since 1990 for a variety of offenses including aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary, attempted aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, theft and drugs, among others.
Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.
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