Hideout resident Patrick Hayes was shot and killed in a road rage incident outside Jordanelle State Park one year ago, on Sept. 25, 2024.
Three months later, Wasatch County Sheriff’s deputies arrested and charged Greg Kyle DeBoer with obstruction of justice. The Browns Canyon man admitted he fatally shot Hayes, then buried the gun near his home.
He was not charged in connection with the shooting.
Wasatch County Sheriff Jared Rigby told KPCW in January 2025 there wasn’t enough evidence for homicide charges, but a new report reveals other law enforcement leaders disagreed.
These new details come as part of an independent investigation into allegations of misconduct and retaliation inside the sheriff's office. Retired Judge Richard McKelvie’s report, published Sept. 19, says the agency’s handling of the Hayes shooting damaged relationships with other local law enforcement and frustrated Wasatch County’s own investigators.
Rigby did not come to an interview he had scheduled with KPCW at the Wasatch County Sheriff’s Office on Wednesday. His assistant said he was attending meetings in southern Utah.
According to McKelvie’s report, a team of experienced Wasatch County Sheriff’s Office detectives were ready to execute a search warrant at DeBoer’s home last fall. Rigby and Undersheriff Josh Probst allegedly told the team not to arrest the suspect, regardless of what they found.
As detectives testified in June, during the November 2024 search, DeBoer told investigators where to find the gun: tucked inside a case, wrapped in tin foil, plastic and duct tape and buried under a rock. DeBoer was arrested more than a month later on Dec. 24.
Sue Ann Kern was engaged to Patrick Hayes when he was killed. She said she’s grateful the judge’s report was published. It was “incredibly frustrating” for her to read about the direction not to arrest DeBoer during the search.
“That right there needs to be investigated,” she said. “We need to find out why that is the case. It’s baffling to me.”
She is not the only one questioning that decision: McKelvie’s report says the gap between the search and the arrest caused “great frustration not just for the investigators involved in the case, but to other agencies.”
The report says when DeBoer was arrested, the lead detective was out of town and was not notified.
“Again, an important potential opportunity for the subject to be interviewed by an investigator familiar with the case was lost,” the judge wrote.
McKelvie’s report also reveals other law enforcement leaders in the region disagreed with the choice only to charge DeBoer with obstruction of justice, not with Hayes’ death.
Summit County Sheriff Frank Smith told the judge he didn’t understand Wasatch County prosecutors’ decision.
“This is my 45th year in law enforcement,” he said, according to the report. “For the life of me, I don’t know how you have a ‘stand your ground’ when the person leaves the scene, hides a gun and never comes forward.”
According to McKelvie’s report, Smith and his colleagues, as well as the lead detective on the case and a lieutenant who’s since left his job with Wasatch County, all believed DeBoer should face a homicide charge.
McKelvie wrote, “Experienced investigators believe that unnecessary intervention by administrators robbed them of the potential ability to gather critical evidence which could support such a charge.”
The Wasatch County Attorney’s Office stands by its handling of the case. In a statement Wednesday, it wrote it was “satisfied with the thoroughness of the Sheriff's Office investigation and confident in the charging decision.”
“During this investigation, Wasatch County attorneys frequently met with Sheriff’s Office investigators and administration to provide legal support and advice, including on the strategic decision not to make an arrest during the service of a search warrant,” the statement said.
For Kern, however, justice still feels elusive.
“We need justice for Patrick,” she said. “The only way we are going to get to the bottom of this and make justice happen is to have somebody investigate this further, reopen the case, reinvestigate, get some of these questions answered.”
One year after Hayes’ death, she said she wants people to remember her fiancé as a joyful, loving man with a contagious laugh.
“Thursday will be a year, and I cannot tell you how many people have come up to me – people that I’ve never met – and told me about a different relationship they had with Patrick,” she said. “It was amazing to me how many lives he touched.”
Oral arguments in DeBoer’s obstruction of justice case are scheduled for Oct. 1 in 4th District Court.
Hayes’ son, Christian Hayes, also filed a wrongful death lawsuit against DeBoer earlier this year. The next court date in the case is in late November.
In addition to the Hayes investigation, McKelvie’s report explored allegations of absenteeism, inappropriate hiring practices, misuse of public funds and fears of retaliation against junior employees at the Wasatch County Sheriff's Office.
