Thread: Utah police say man may regret remarks

Utah police say man may regret remarks
33 minutes ago

SALT LAKE CITY - A man who made a public plea for a hit-and-run driver to take responsibility for his wife's death probably will regret those remarks, police said Tuesday.

Sherman Lynch, 59, was arrested for murder Monday, just days after telling a TV station that a "callous" driver struck his wife "like a mongrel dog."

"Some of those statements may come back to haunt him," said Lt. Paul Jaroscak of the Salt Lake County sheriff's office.

Indeed, Lynch's remarks on television persuaded his girlfriend to call police to report that he owned a pickup truck that matched the vehicle that killed Patricia Rothermich, Jaroscak said.

On Monday, four days after the tip, a man taking care of a vacant house in Holladay called to report a truck in the garage, Jaroscak said. The entry was sealed with plywood. "It was a needle in a haystack — just dumb luck," the sheriff's spokesman said.

Rothermich was killed while walking Oct. 3. In interviews with TV stations, Lynch urged the driver to come forward. "That's very callous. She just didn't deserve that in any way, and just to be, in my mind, hit like a mongrel dog," he told KSL-TV last week. "We're grateful, at least, she didn't suffer. The doctor said she didn't ever know what happened to her."

Jaroscak said they had been married for about nine years. Lynch was being held without bail Tuesday. It was not known if he had an attorney. Lynch told investigators that he had given the truck away after it broke down, according to documents filed to support his arrest.

He revealed that he would probably receive more than $200,000 in insurance payments because of his wife's death, the documents state.

Rothermich, 64, was a former regional director for the Utah Division of Child and Family Services.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071010/...N4K2RUAXms0NUE