A four-year-old girl who watched her mother write her killer’s name in her own blood before dying has finally brought the monster to justice after a 46-year fight for the truth. Heidi Jones-Asay was just a toddler when she found her mother Loretta Jones stabbed 19 times on the floor of their Price, Utah home on July 30, 1970. For decades, the case went cold, the killer walked free, and Heidi carried the crushing weight of a promise she made to herself as a child.
She would not let her mother’s murder go unsolved.
The nightmare began on a warm summer night when Heidi kissed her mother goodnight, unaware it would be the last time. Loretta, a 23-year-old single mother who made her daughter’s clothes and dolls, was everything to Heidi. She was the best mom, Heidi recalled, a woman who sacrificed everything to provide a happy life.
But that night, a predator entered their home without forced entry, indicating Loretta likely knew her attacker. The medical examiner found no defensive wounds on Loretta’s body, a detail that haunted investigators for years.
The only explanation was that Loretta stayed quiet to protect her daughter, who was sleeping in the next room. I believe that Loretta stayed quiet to protect her own child, said Detective David Brewer, who would later reopen the case. She was afraid that her daughter would run out and get hurt as well.
Heidi’s memory of that night is fragmented but vivid. She remembers peering through a keyhole in her bedroom door and seeing something on the floor. At first, she thought it was a pile of laundry.
But when she pulled the door open, she found her mother lying in a pool of blood.
Heidi staggered out of the house in shock. Her next-door neighbor was digging for worms on the front porch. Heidi told her, I think my mommy’s dead.
The neighbor called police, and at 11:40 a. m. on July 31, 1970, officers arrived at 468 East 4th Street.
They found Loretta Jones murdered by stabbing. The sheriff kept calling for Heidi’s mother, and finally her father came home, very upset and in shock. The first thing he asked was where is Heidi.
The case quickly took a dark turn. Just three blocks away from Loretta’s house, a 10-year-old girl named Lori Kula had been attacked the same night. At around 9:30 p.
m. , a man grabbed Lori as she was walking toward her home. He put his hand over her mouth, but she screamed, and he ran away in the direction of Loretta’s house.
Police were convinced the two crimes were connected. The whole community of Price was terrified. A lot of the town was just scared, said a family member.
Here’s this guy that killed my sister, and he had grabbed a little girl that night as well. Everybody’s wondering where’s this guy, what happened to him.
Days after the murder, Heidi attended her mother’s funeral. She remembers looking at Loretta in the coffin, wearing a blue dress with a high collar to hide the slit in her neck. She looked just like Sleeping Beauty to me, Heidi said.
It was really hard to see Loretta, and there’s her daughter Heidi just crying, realizing that her mother is gone. In the months that followed, police arrested a man named Tom Eagly after his 𝒶𝒻𝒻𝒶𝒾𝓇 with Loretta became known. He was the only suspect.
But three months later, he walked free due to lack of evidence. The judge kicked it out of the preliminary hearing stage, said Detective Brewer. Tom Eagly just happened to be a guy at the wrong place at the wrong time.
For more than 40 years, the case remained unsolved. Heidi grew up haunted by guilt. She couldn’t forget her mother, but everyone around her told her to let it go.
I remember a lot of crying, a lot of trying to talk to my grandma, but it would just make her cry, Heidi said. She said why don’t you just let it go, and I said because I can’t let it go. Heidi understood something that others didn’t.
Her mother had not screamed out for help that night. She didn’t want anything to happen to me, Heidi realized. How could I just let that go?
My mom was my hero that night.
In 1989, when Heidi turned 23, the same age her mother was when she was killed, she began a massive letter campaign inspired by the TV show Unsolved Mysteries. She wrote to the Price City Police Department, the Carbon County Sheriff, and the FBI. None of them responded.
But she persisted. If I could keep the conversation alive about my mom, then maybe I could help get her case solved, she said. Years passed with no response.
Approaching her 40th birthday, Heidi made a bold decision. She left everything behind and returned to Price, Utah, with the sole intention of solving her mother’s murder.
There, she was confronted by her grandmother, who pushed her to let it go. My mom just wanted Loretta to rest in peace, Heidi said. I really honestly had mixed feelings, but at the other part of me was like where’s this guy that killed Loretta.
In 2009, by chance, Heidi reconnected with a childhood friend, David Brewer, who commented on one of her social media posts. She learned he was a detective. Heidi told him everything she could remember about that night.
I spilled my guts to him, she said. I just needed help.
Brewer was moved by Heidi’s story. He could tell she was still very upset even after all these years. He reopened the case, but immediately faced a serious roadblock.
The original case files no longer existed. I quickly found out that I had no evidence and no case file at all, Brewer said. Which is uncommon because homicides you keep for life.
Apart from old newspaper clippings, Brewer got his hands on written testimonies of the first responders. They found Loretta lying on her side with her hand in a pool of blood. The doctor witnessed 17 stab wounds in her back and two in her chest.
There was no sign of forced entry.
Brewer then made another 𝓈𝒽𝓸𝒸𝓀𝒾𝓃𝑔 discovery. According to the medical examiner, Loretta didn’t fight back. Someone being stabbed multiple times would definitely show defensive wounds in a typical case.
The question was stunning. Why wouldn’t Loretta have fought for her life? Brewer believed that Loretta stayed quiet to protect her own child.
She was afraid that her daughter would run out and get hurt as well.
Despite having details about the crime, Brewer still had no evidence from the crime scene and no lead on the suspect. The likelihood of solving this case was close to none. He went to face Heidi empty-handed.
God, we don’t have any, he said. Heidi then remembered a box of belongings her grandmother had kept all those years. Inside, she had put anything that concerned the murder of her daughter.
The most striking item was a photo of Heidi standing near the outline of her mother’s body. Why are they taking a picture of her right there where her mom died like that? Heidi asked.
The blood stain was still there. This picture is the only crime scene photo we have.
Along with the photo was a newspaper cutout of a man named Tom Eagly accompanied by a police officer. Brewer understood that Tom was the only suspect in the murder case. He spent three months in jail awaiting trial but was set free by the judge because of a lack of incriminating evidence.
While looking into other newspaper clippings, Brewer made a 𝓈𝒽𝓸𝒸𝓀𝒾𝓃𝑔 discovery. On the night Loretta was murdered, there was an attempted kidnapping only three blocks away. Brewer knew this couldn’t be a coincidence.
It was likely the crime was committed by the same man that killed Loretta Jones.
Brewer knew Lori Kula saw the killer that night. He had to get in touch with her. She was the best chance he had to find a proper suspect.
At the same time, Heidi made a most 𝓈𝒽𝓸𝒸𝓀𝒾𝓃𝑔 discovery. While checking into her grandmother’s box, she found a journal book in which her grandma documented every single thing four-year-old Heidi said after that fateful night. The first entry was written on the same night Loretta was found dead.
Heidi said it was Tom that killed my mom. It sounds like Tom. I had a bad dream.
I heard footsteps and he said I’m coming to 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 you when I’m through with you, maybe your daughter too. I heard a thud, a noise. Mommy fell.
She was dead. I seen him through the hole in my door. Tom 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 mommy.
He always slapped her, hitting her. He was mean to Mommy.
The long absent memories resurfaced as Heidi read. She finally recalled the last thing her mother said to her that night. My mom came to my bedroom and she told me don’t come out.
The words are striking to think that Loretta knew something bad might happen and still she wanted to protect her child. As Heidi couldn’t remember anything more about the man she called Tom, Brewer went forward and met with Lori Kula. His best lead would be her description of the man she saw that night.
Brown hair, lighter eyes, like 5’10”, 5’11”, something like that. He wasn’t real tall, but he wasn’t short.
As Lori described her version of the events to Brewer, one detail caught his attention. Lori was later called in by police to identify the suspect. When we got to the police station, they had me kind of peek around the corner and look at him, and they asked is that the guy.
I felt like I was gonna throw up, and I said yes. Lori identified her attacker out of a lineup. The man’s name was Tom Eagly.
The same man that was arrested back in 1970. I knew that Loretta had dated Tom Eagly one time on a blind date. She didn’t like him, and she didn’t want anything to do with this guy.
Heidi was always right to the same story every time. Tom killed my mom.
While Brewer was sure he had the right suspect, he knew he didn’t have enough evidence to convince a judge for a trial. If he couldn’t get a confession, his only option would be a DNA sample. While consulting with forensic experts and other qualified detectives, Brewer was given a crazy idea.
If he was going to find DNA evidence, it could only be found in one place. Loretta’s body. The thought of exhuming the remains of Loretta was troubling.
Still, Brewer called Heidi to ask for her permission. They were both running out of options. Give me the shovel, I’ll help dig, because that’s what it’s going to take.
I will do it. I will do whatever I had to do.
Investigators in Carbon County said they were closer than ever to figuring out who raped and killed a young mother nearly five decades ago. I would hope that nobody ever has to exhume their own mother, Heidi said. In June 2016, on the day Loretta Jones’ body was exhumed, Heidi melted down in her head.
It was as if she was losing her mother all over again. But everything depended on the result of this exhumation. The process was highly publicized, and the parties involved made sure the news would reach Tom Eagly’s home.
Brewer got a call from a friend at the Jones family. Someone saw the exhumation on TV. She said, hey, I got some info for you that you might just find interesting.
Did you ever know that Loretta wrote the killer’s name in blood? I says how would you know this anyway? I mean, she says I was living with Heidi’s grandmother at the time going to school.
She says I saw it right there with my own eyes. We got one crime scene picture back, relooked, and with a little bit of color manipulation on this photo, it is there plain as day. She writes this T and this O.
I never heard that. I was beyond excited. I mean, my mom taking her last dying breath writing out T and O, leaving the clues 46 years ago.
Loretta made sure her murder would be solved, and yet she has never gotten the justice she deserved.
To Heidi, it was now more important than ever that Tom Eagly got put behind bars. Everything hung on the results of the exhumation. However, when the lab results came back, they were struck by the worst news ever.
No trace of DNA had been found. Although their plan had failed, on television they played it cool. Their last chance was Plan B, the bluff.
There are new things just come to light, and things that didn’t make sense maybe a year ago make sense now. The idea was to make Eagly think they did find something and see how he would react. Hendrick said it’s still too soon to publicly name the individual that investigators are looking at for this crime.
He did tell me that person is still alive and that detectives are actively working to arrest and prosecute him.
Finally, a breakthrough. A woman called claiming she knew Tom Eagly as her neighbor and that he came to her for help following the exhumation. Tom came to her house and said, hey, can you watch my dogs?
The cops are going to come for me really soon. They arranged for the woman to record her conversations with Eagly but never expected her to get a full confession. Were you drunk?
I was drunk, yeah. And the door closed and then what? I was thrown down for 𝒔𝒆𝒙, okay.
And that made you feel like I lost it. I cut her throat and I left. He did it.
He really did it. After all these years, he finally confessed. Words can’t describe what it was like.
As he said, we got your guy. Your mom can rest now.
A 76-year-old man is on his way to prison for a murder he committed in Carbon County back in 1970. I can’t believe this. I can’t believe this day is finally here.
In my impact statement, I told Eagly how he took my mom away from me. She missed me dating. She missed me getting my driver’s license.
She missed me getting married. She missed out on everything in my life. It’s the end of a long road for Heidi Jones-Asay.
This afternoon, Eagly was sentenced to 10 years to life behind bars for that crime. He will be 96 years old when he goes out before the parole board, and I will make sure he doesn’t get out. People say it’s closure, but for me it wasn’t closure.
It was justice. I don’t even know how to put into words what David Brewer means to me. Her persistence.
I honestly think there were times that she lifted me up. Without her pushing me along and giving me that support, I don’t think it would have been solved. Some heroes wear capes.
Mine wears Kevlar. My mom, my mom’s life mattered the most. For me, it’s all been about never give up.
Never give up as long as there’s hope. There’s a chance. I learned to believe in the impossible.
This has been such a big part of Jones-Asay’s life. She says she’s not sure what she’s going to do now. She says simply she’s going to keep her mother’s memory alive.
Thank you.
