The Hi-Fi Murders

The Hi-Fi Murders

The Hi-Fi Murders in 1974 still shock today. Three men—Dale Selby, William Andrews, and Keith Roberts—entered the Hi-Fi Shop in Ogden just before closing time.

They then held store workers 20-year-old Stanley Walker and 18-year-old Michelle Ansley hostage in the basement before robbing the store. Later, 16-year-old Byron Naisbitt entered the store as he was running errands and was also taken hostage. Both Bryon’s mother, Carol Peterson Naisbitt, and Stanley’s father, Orren Walker, arrived at the store to look for their children where they suffered the same fate.

What happened next is unimaginable and involved the hostages being forced to drink a corrosive liquid that caused their lips, tongues and throats to burn and the flesh to peel away from their skin. The hours of torture also included the use of a ballpoint pen as a weapon and three of the hostages were shot dead. The two surviving victims—Orren Walker and Byron Naisbitt—sustained permanent life-changing injuries.

The twisted killers were executed by lethal injection , all except for Keith Roberts who was charged with aggravated robbery and sentenced to life imprisonment.

The Hi-Fi murders were the torture and killings of three people during a robbery at the Hi-fi Shop, a home audio store in Ogden, Utah, on the evening of April 22, 1974. Several men entered the Hi-fi Shop shortly before closing time and began taking hostages; two would survive but with severe life-changing injuries. Violence included kicking a pen into an ear and the brutal rape of an eighteen-year-old girl who was later shot in the head. The hostages were also forced to drink a corrosive drain cleaner, causing burns to their mouths and throats. The crime became notorious for its extreme violence and later accusations of racial bias in the Utah judiciary.

Police only had enough evidence to convict three enlisted United States Air Force airmen: Dale Selby Pierre, William Andrews, and Keith Roberts.[4] Pierre and Andrews were both sentenced to death and executed for murder and aggravated robbery, while Roberts, who had remained in a getaway vehicle, was convicted of robbery

On April 22, 1974, Pierre, Andrews, Roberts, and three other men drove in two vans to the Hi-Fi Shop at 2323 Washington Boulevard, Ogden, just before closing time. Four of the group entered the shop brandishing handguns, while Roberts and another man remained with the vehicles.[4] Two employees, Stanley Walker, aged 20, and Michelle Ansley, aged 18, were in the store at the time and were taken hostage. Pierre and Andrews took the two into the store's basement and bound them. The gang then began robbing the store.

Later, a 16-year-old boy, Cortney Naisbitt,[5] arrived to thank Walker for allowing him to park his car in the store's parking lot as he ran an errand next door. He was also taken hostage and tied up in the basement with Walker and Ansley.

Later that evening, Orren Walker, Stanley Walker's 43-year-old father, became worried that his son had not returned home and went to the store. Cortney Naisbitt's mother, Carol Peterson Naisbitt,[5] also arrived at the shop later that evening looking for her son, who was late getting home. Both Orren Walker and Carol Naisbitt were taken hostage and tied up in the basement

With five people now held hostage in the basement, Pierre told Andrews to get something from their van. Andrews returned with a bottle in a brown paper bag, from which Pierre poured a cup of Drano drain cleaner. Pierre ordered Orren to administer it to the other hostages, but he refused, and was bound, gagged, and left face-down on the basement floor.

Pierre and Andrews then propped the hostages into sitting positions and forced them to drink the Drano, telling them it was vodka laced with sleeping pills. It immediately caused blisters on the victims' lips, burnt their tongues and throats, and peeled the flesh around their mouths.[6] Ansley, still begging for her life,[7] was forced to drink the Drano, although Orren said she coughed less than the other victims. Pierre and Andrews tried to duct-tape the hostages' mouths shut to hold quantities of drain cleaner in and to silence their screams, but the oozing blisters prevented the adhesive from sticking. Orren was the last to be given the Drano, but seeing what was happening to the other hostages, allowed it to pour out of his mouth and then mimicked the convulsions and screams of his son and other hostages.

Pierre became angry because the deaths were taking too long, and were too loud and messy, so he shot Carol and Cortney Naisbitt in the backs of their heads, killing Carol but leaving Cortney alive. Selby then shot at Walker but missed. He fatally shot Stanley before again shooting at Orren, this time grazing the back of his head.

Pierre took Ansley to the far corner of the basement, forced her at gunpoint to remove her clothes, then repeatedly raped her after telling Andrews to leave for 30 minutes. Afterwards, he allowed her to use the bathroom while he watched, then dragged her, still naked, back to the other hostages, threw her on her face, and fatally shot her in the back of the head. According to Orren's testimony, her last words were "I am too young to die."

Andrews and Pierre noted that Orren was still alive, so Pierre mounted him, wrapped a wire around his throat, and tried to strangle him. When this failed, Pierre and Andrews inserted a ballpoint pen into Orren's ear. Pierre stomped it until it punctured his eardrum, broke, and exited his throat. Pierre and Andrews went upstairs, finished loading equipment into their van, and left.

The joint trial of Pierre, Andrews, and Roberts for first-degree murder and robbery began on October 15, 1974, in Farmington, in neighboring Davis County. On November 16, 1974, Pierre and Andrews were convicted of all charges; Roberts was convicted only of robbery. Four days later, Pierre and Andrews were sentenced to death. Roberts was sentenced to five years to life imprisonment and was paroled in 1987.

During the trial, it was revealed that Pierre and Andrews had robbed the store with the intent of killing anyone they encountered, and, in the months prior, had been looking for ways to commit the murders quietly and cleanly. The two then repeatedly watched the film Magnum Force (1973), in which a prostitute (played by Margaret Avery) is forced to drink Drano and is shown immediately dropping dead. Pierre and Andrews decided that this would be an efficient method of murder and decided to use it in their crime.

Survivor Orren Walker was the star witness for the prosecution. Due to his amnesia, Cortney Naisbitt was unable to testify. His father, Byron Hunter Naisbitt, did testify. Continue reading