BRUTAL

Utah Man Confesses to Killing Wife and In-Laws, Cops Say

Jeremy Bailey, 34, allegedly told dispatchers “he was thinking of doing this a few days ago.”

Authorities say a Utah man killed his wife and two in-laws Friday morning and then phoned the police to admit to the triple homicide. The suspect, 34-year-old Jeremy Bailey, surrendered without incident at the family home in Layton, where the bodies of his wife Anastasia Stevens and her father and stepmother were found. Three of the four family dogs were also killed, police said. A probable cause statement claimed that the murders followed a “domestic violence incident” between Bailey and Stevens, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. Before the killings, Bailey asked a friend to take his guns off of his hands as “he was thinking of doing this a few days ago,” according to the document. But, the probable cause statement said he armed himself with one of the victims’ weapons, and surveillance footage caught him purchasing ammunition less than an hour before his 911 confession call. Bailey allegedly told police he would rather take the death penalty than spend life behind bars and was apparently “excited” after the incident. Now, he is being held at Davis County Jail without bail with three counts of aggravated murder, three counts of felony discharge of a firearm, and three counts of aggravated cruelty to animals.