A Herriman man pleaded guilty to aggravated murder this week in the 2024 killing of his ex-girlfriend, Summer Roney, whose body was discovered stuffed in a box inside his Jeep outside a Bluffdale convenience store. Jacob Holt Johnson admitted he caused Roney's death by strangulation with an extension cord, closing out a case that began when a Bluffdale police officer found him unconscious behind the wheel with her remains in the back.
According to ksl.com, Roney, 30, was found in a box in the back of a Jeep parked at a 7-Eleven at 15871 S. Redwood Road in Bluffdale, with an extension cord around her neck and multiple bruises and lacerations. As part of the plea agreement, prosecutors said they agreed not to seek the death penalty after consulting with Roney's family, who had indicated they would support a deal that guaranteed Johnson would never be released. FOX 13 News Utah reported that Johnson would spend life in prison after agreeing to the plea deal, with KSL reporting that the judge would impose the sentence at a future Dec. 17 sentencing.
The outlet's reporting on the case also laid out a grim scene investigators say they found away from the gas station. Detectives discovered blood throughout Johnson's home, along with what the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office described as apparent signs someone had attempted to clean up a crime scene. Investigators also said they found a bloodied hammer, hatchet, knife, gas can and bottle of bleach inside Johnson's Jeep, and the district attorney's office has said Roney was killed in Herriman.
A Relationship Marked by Prior Abuse, Family Says
Roney's family told the station that she and Johnson had an on-again, off-again romantic relationship, and that people who knew her said she had shared incidents of verbal and physical abuse by Johnson before her death. A Bluffdale police officer found Johnson unconscious in his Jeep at a gas station, and another officer located Roney's body inside the cardboard box in the trunk shortly after, per the same account.
Johnson's defense attorneys drew a sharper line around what their client was and was not admitting to. The station's report notes that Johnson's attorneys said he admitted only to killing Roney by strangulation and did not agree that she was killed by blunt-force trauma, even as Roney's body reportedly showed bruises and lacerations to her head, arms and legs. The plea deal also saw several other charges dismissed, including obstruction of justice, possession of a dangerous weapon as a restricted person, and abuse or desecration of a human body.
Charges Trace Back to Aggravated Murder Count
The case against Johnson originated with four felony charges announced by the Salt Lake County District Attorney's office for his alleged role in the death of a woman with whom he had an intimate relationship. One of the charges was first-degree aggravated murder.
Domestic Violence Remains Utah's Deadliest Category of Homicide
Roney's death adds to a pattern researchers and investigators have flagged across the state. Domestic and familial violence is the single largest category of lethal violence in Utah, according to data examined by FOX 13 News Utah covering 137 homicides between July 2023 and January 2025. Among victims whose relationships to their killer were known, 51 of those deaths involved intimate-partner or familial violence — 37% of the total — exceeding the 33 deaths involving strangers or acquaintances.
That same data found victims of domestic and familial violence were split almost evenly by gender, with 26 men and 25 women, while perpetrators were overwhelmingly male by more than six to one. Separately, research from Utah State University has estimated that one in three Utah women will experience some form of contact sexual violence, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime, and that from 2009 through 2016, nearly 23% of all homicides in the state were related to intimate-partner or domestic-violence incidents.
