Man Charged With Pizza Delivery Driver’s Cold-Case Murder 28 Years Later

A man was charged on Thursday in connection to the death of a Utah mother who was fatally stabbed almost 30 years ago while working as a pizza delivery driver, the Salt Lake County district attorney’s office announced.

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

Redmond was still in her Pizza Hut uniform when her body was found, according to the district attorney’s office. Her co-workers told detectives from the West Valley City police department that she had been making deliveries in her pickup truck, but the vehicle was found in a parking lot a little more than a mile from her body, according to a probable cause statement shared by prosecutors.

Redmond’s body was discovered about 11 minutes after she left the store to make a delivery. Detectives who searched the truck found a bloodied knife behind the driver’s seat and observed signs of struggle, according to the document. Evidence of blood underneath the truck suggested that 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, according to the probable cause, according to the probable cause document.

The case would remain cold until March of 2019, when DNA taken from blood on a seat belt buckle in Redmond’s truck was found to be a match with Younge, the attorney general’s office said. Prints found on the knife also matched Younge’s.

Younge took the bus in 1996 and worked about four miles from the Pizza Hut where Redmond was employed, which had two bus stops nearby, according to detectives.

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

According to reports by local news outlet KSL, Younge was convicted in 2010 in the sexual assault of a 23-year-old University of Utah student who was walking home from campus. The incident happened just about a month before Redmond was found dead.

Prosecutors mentioned in a motion for no-bail hold 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 motion for no bail also mentioned that Younge had been charged in three murders in 1999 and 2000, and had been suspected of a fourth — a string of killings known as the “garbage bag” murders involving women found dead in trash bags in Illinois. That case was dismissed due to credibility issues with one of the witnesses, according to KSL.