A 15-year-old boy has been charged with manslaughter in the killing of his father at a Sandy home near 9700 South and 1200 East on Sept. 27. Charging documents allege the shooting followed years of verbal and physical abuse. The teen told investigators he acted after hearing his father hit his crying brother.
Sandy police were called to the home that Sunday around 12:30 p.m., according to KUTV. Officers found a man dead from an apparent gunshot wound, and KSL News reports he was located in the basement with a gunshot wound to the head. A juvenile was also found with a gunshot wound; KUTV described the injury as being to the leg, while KSL News described it as a wound to the knee. That injured juvenile was hospitalized in stable condition.
Detectives took a juvenile suspect into custody without incident at the scene and booked him into juvenile detention, per the KUTV report. As of the Monday morning after the shooting, charges had not yet been filed, though Sandy Police said at the time they were forthcoming. Gephardt Daily reported that investigators said there was no ongoing threat to the public as the investigation continued.
What the Charging Documents Allege
The 15-year-old, who lives in Sandy and has not been named by KSL, was ultimately charged in 3rd District juvenile court with manslaughter, a second-degree felony. According to the account attributed to charging documents, the teen and his brother endured years of verbal and physical abuse from their father, with the abuse reportedly beginning while the family lived in Montana. The father is described in those documents as an extremely angry man who became enraged over small things and who yelled at the boys when they cried or giggled, and who allegedly called them embarrassments.
The filings also describe allegations involving the teen’s diabetes and need for insulin. They allege his father never paid attention during hospital training on managing the condition and struck him during an incident involving high blood sugar and insulin. The teen told investigators his father once forced him to take a near-lethal dose of insulin while hitting him; he said he believed he survived because he secretly ate hidden candy.
The Shooting-Day Account in the Filings
According to the charging documents, the father began yelling and throwing things after the boys’ mother left for work. The teen told investigators his father slapped and backhanded him in the head. He said he had reached a breaking point and went to get his father’s gun after hearing his father hit his crying brother.
The teen told investigators he shot his father, and that the bullet passed through his father’s head and struck his brother. The brother told investigators he heard a bang and believed their father would have killed both boys if he had not been shot a second time. These accounts are allegations described in the charging documents, as reported by KSL News.
Other Utah Cases Offer Limited Context
The case adds to a string of Utah incidents this year involving minors accused in family shootings. In August, a 15-year-old girl was taken into custody after deputies responding to an alleged shooting in Kanarraville found a woman dead, as reported by KUTV. That same month, prosecutors in a Saratoga Springs case said they would seek to have a 16-year-old boy charged with two counts of aggravated murder certified to stand trial as an adult, according to KSL.com. In 2019, a different 15-year-old Utah boy admitted to shooting and killing his stepbrother, a case that also ended in a manslaughter plea, Deseret News reported at the time.
What Utah’s Juvenile Data Can—and Cannot—Show
According to the Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice’s 2024 annual report, Utah recorded 13,376 juvenile court referrals in FY 2024, 6% fewer than in FY 2023. That figure covers referrals overall, not homicide-related referrals or cases specifically, so it does not establish a recent trend in juvenile homicide cases.
The case remains in juvenile court. The publicly described charging-document allegations do not provide a full account of the court docket, and the available information does not say whether prosecutors intend to seek a different handling of the case as it proceeds.
