Death row inmate Ralph Menzies has died.
His death from natural causes, according to the Utah Department of Corrections, happened nearly three months after he was scheduled to be executed by firing squad. That Sept. 5 date was postponed after questions arose over his illness and mental state.
The 67-year-old was sentenced to death in 1988 after his conviction for kidnapping and murdering Maurine Hunsaker two years earlier. Hunsaker was a young mother of three who worked at a gas station in Kearns. On the night of Feb. 23, 1986, Menzies abducted her from work. Two days later, a hiker found her body with her throat slit at the Storm Mountain Picnic Area in Big Cottonwood Canyon. She had been tied to a tree.
Menzies had vascular dementia. He was originally scheduled to be killed by firing squad in September after a judge ruled him mentally competent — meaning he could reach a “rational understanding” of why he was being executed, which is required under state and federal law.
In late August, the Utah Supreme Court halted the execution, saying Menzies needed to be reevaluated due to his reported declining condition. At recent hearings, Menzies appeared in a wheelchair with an oxygen tank.
At the time of his death, his competence was still being debated in court.
Last year, Michael Brooks, the Department of Health and Human Services psychologist, initially testified that Menzies was competent based on his evaluation. But in a Nov. 17 report filed with the courts (and later made private), Brooks’s conclusion changed due to Menzies’ declining state.
Brooks said Menzies was unaware of the crime he was convicted of and that he was being executed for it.
“It is therefore my opinion that Mr. Menzies is not competent to be executed,” he wrote. “Given that there is no effective treatment for his condition, I do not believe he has a substantial probability of restoration to competency.”
A December hearing about his competency had already been set.
Before this, Menzies’ attorneys had argued to the court and parole board that he should have his sentence commuted to life in prison due to his illness, of which they said he would soon likely die. The board denied that request.
Before his death, the Hunsaker family had repeatedly said they wanted Menzies’ execution to proceed and were frustrated by how things kept dragging on.
When a judge considered a new mental evaluation for Menzies in July, Maurine’s son Matt Hunsaker told the judge, “We're now before the court deciding whether he's played the system long enough to where he gets to find a technicality to spare his life and basically deny justice for my mom.”
After the announcement of Menzies’ death, Hunsaker told the Utah News Dispatch that he was numb and “grateful that my family does not have to endure this for the holidays.”
In response to his death, a statement from Menzies’ legal team said he was “deeply loved by his family, friends, legal team and by everyone who knew him well. In his later years, he devoted himself to helping others in every way he could. We’re grateful that Ralph passed naturally and maintained his spiritedness and dignity until the end.”
