Episode 236: Sidney Ann Merrick

The First Degree

Alexis Linkletter and Jac Vanek

True Crime, Society & Culture, News

4.5 • 10K Ratings

🗓️ 22 February 2023

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On Monday, September 26th, 1983, 21-year-old Sidney Ann Merrick drives from Salt Lake City to Park City, Utah, to run an errand for her boss. While heading eastbound on I-80, Sidney’s car breaks down. Less than an hour later, Sidney’s body is discovered on an off-ramp near Parleys Summit. She’s been stabbed to death. Eyewitnesses traveling along the freeway place 33-year-old Wesley Allen Tuttle at the scene. Tuttle is apprehended while trying to flee the country and swiftly convicted of first-degree murder. Shortly after, Tuttle escapes prison for five months. Then, the Utah Supreme Court changes Tuttle’s conviction to second-degree murder and significantly reduce his sentence. But, in 2008, new DNA testing proves Tuttle sexually assaulted and murdered another young woman: 14-year-old Lisa Lynne Chambers. In episode 236, Jac and Alexis explain how Wesley Allen Tuttle nearly escaped prison, the court system, and justice for over 25 years.

Transcript

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0:00.0	First degree.
0:02.0	First degree.
0:04.0	First degree.
0:06.0	First degree.
0:08.0	First degree.
0:10.0	Get on the grid.
0:12.0	Get on the grid.
0:14.0	These things are supposed to happen in movies, not real life.
0:18.0	I remember at the time just thinking, oh my gosh, she's so cute and friendly and laughing
0:29.0	and just look like someone that you would want to be friends with.
0:33.0	She was like a person that just kind of glowed.
0:35.0	I don't know how to describe it, but she just seemed like an amazing person.
0:40.0	It wasn't until they set her name on the news that it's like, oh my gosh, that's the same girl I think.
0:48.0	I just cried because I knew that's got to be her.
0:51.0	That's got to be the same Sydney that I knew.
0:54.0	And I can remember just crying and just thinking how horrible that was that her life was snuffed out in such a horrible way.
1:05.0	That's the thing that's just so awful to think about.
1:08.0	She's probably a hundred pounds, a little tiny, twenty or twenty one year old girl with this creepy guy that she was fighting them off and doing her best to try to save herself.
1:20.0	And she really didn't have a chance.
1:23.0	Welcome to the first degree of the True Crime podcast that you might end up on.
1:27.0	My name is Jack Fanick. I'm sitting here with Alexis Linkletter.
1:30.0	How you doing today, Lex?
	...

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