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Deseret News Share this story Bill Holthaus The second season of KSL’s investigative podcast series “Cold: Justice for Joyce,” concludes this week with the release of the season’s 13th episode. The episode details the efforts of various KSL staff to contact death row inmate Douglas Lovell and request an interview with him about his murder of Joyce Yost in 1985. “Whenever I am in the news, I know it is very upsetting to the family and loved ones of Ms. Yost,” Lovell wrote in a Nov. 9, 2019 letter refusing one such interview request. “I believe an interview with you will most [sic] get back to Ms. Yost’s family. I hope you will understand and appreciate my decision.” ....
Deseret News Share this story Family photo In a case of he said, she said, who is a judge or jury to believe when “she” isn’t actually there to say anything? The disappearance of Joyce Yost 10 days before she was scheduled to testify in a felony kidnapping and sexual assault trial left prosecutors in an unusual position. They faced the task of trying the case without a victim in court acting as the accuser and key witness. “It was the first time we prosecuted a rape case without a victim in the state of Utah,” former Clearfield police detective William Holthaus said. “We were pretty nervous.” ....
Deseret News Share this story Salt Lake County Jail Police and prosecutors had at least three opportunities following the April 3, 1985, rape of Joyce Yost to prevent the man who had sexually assaulted her from making good on his threat to return and take her life. Breakdowns in communication between multiple individuals, agencies and Utah’s courts allowed the suspect, Douglas Anderson Lovell, to repeatedly leave custody before he at last returned to Yost’s apartment and killed her. Lovell has spent the last 35 years in prison and faces the death penalty for killing Yost days before she was to testify against him in court. Yost’s body has never been located. ....
Deseret News Share this story Family photo Spools of magnetic tape captured the voice of Joyce Yost on the morning of April 4, 1985. An audio cassette rolled as Yost offered a step-by-step account of her sexual assault at the hands of a man she’d never met. “He grabbed me by the throat and he was forceful and told me if I screamed or said anything that he would tear my throat open,” Yost can be heard saying through the tape’s analog hiss. Joyce Yost’s police report Yost had spent the evening prior to her report having dinner with a friend at a supper club called Pier 3. She’d parted ways with that friend in the parking lot outside of the club a bit after 10 p.m. ....