Parents Cleaned Murder Scene After Daughter Killed Her Husband, Authorities Say

Two Utah parents are accused of helping their adult daughter clean the site of her husband’s murder, according to authorities.

Thomas Gledhill, 71, and Rosalie Gledhill, 67, were arrested Thursday on suspicion of obstruction of justice. Cottonwood Heights police said the two assisted daughter Jennifer Gledhill, 41, by cleaning her home in the city after she fatally shot 51-year-old Matthew Johnson, according to probable cause documents obtained by HuffPost.

Johnson, a National Guard member, was reported missing by his wife last month. Jennifer Gledhill told police that she had not seen her husband since Sept. 20 following an argument, the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office said in an Oct. 15 press release.

Gledhill had filed for divorce from Johnson in July, local news station KSL reported, citing court documents. The following month, she filed for a temporary protective order and submitted video evidence in support of her petition, the outlet said.

But in September, 3rd District Court Commissioner Russell Minas reportedly declined to issue a civil protective order, saying that “abuse” had not occurred. He said the videos portrayed Gledhill as “unafraid” of her husband and “equally confrontational toward him.”

Minas also stated that text messages between the couple showed Gledhill “repeatedly berating, belittling and demeaning” her husband, “if not outright attempting to goad him into a violent response,” KSL reported.

A man later came forward to police as an informant, saying that he’d been in an affair with Gledhill. According to prosecutors, Gledhill told the man that Johnson had yelled at her about the affair on Sept. 20. The man said Gledhill had confessed to shooting Johnson on Sept. 21 while the husband was in their bed.

According to the informant, Gledhill said she put Johnson’s body in a rooftop storage container, slid him down the stairs of their home, loaded his body into the back of a minivan, took him north and buried him.

Gledhill’s parents allegedly cleaned the couple’s home following the killing and provided detectives with false information. The parents denied cleaning the house, but neighbors told police that they witnessed the cleaning for over five hours, according to the probable cause documents.

Detectives who searched Gledhill’s home said they observed blood stains in the primary bedroom, and that a mattress there was newly purchased by Gledhill’s mother.

A forensic test of blood found beneath the bed showed that it belonged to a single male source, but it is not yet clear whether that is Johnson, prosecutors said. Johnson remains missing, as does the mattress on which he was allegedly shot.

Gledhill was arrested earlier this month. She faces nine felony charges, including one count of first-degree murder, five counts obstruction of justice, one count of possession with intent to distribute, one count of desecration of a human body and one count of witness tampering.

Amid her criminal case, a court order barred Gledhill from seeing her three children, ages 11, 7 and 5. Her attorney, Jeremy Deus, criticized the decision, saying authorities seek to deprive her of everything she loves.

“The state, and the city, and the police agency that investigated this are trying to set everything that my client loves on fire, essentially,” Deus said, according to ABC affiliate KTVX. “Everything surrounding her, they’re trying to take away. I think that this pretrial protective order is part of that.”