Fontella Galloway

Status:

Open

Jurisdiction:

Roosevelt Police Department (UT)

Offense Location:

Roosevelt, Utah

Summary:

Fontella Galloway, a 65-year-old former schoolteacher, was found tortured, sexually assaulted and bound with ropes at her home in Roosevelt, Utah on June 19, 1969. She died of suffocation from the weight of her own body. She was found partially nude. Her case remains unsolved to this day. When found she had been dead for 24 hours. BCI Case # 820045. Utah Department of Public Safety. Unsolved homicide.

Vital Statistics

Circumstances of Offense:

A 14-year-old Roosevelt boy who regularly mowed the lawn for Fontella knocked on Fontella's door. No one answered. He then noticed a screen lying on the ground and that the window was open 12 inches. He glanced through the window and saw what appeared to be a dead body slumped on a bed. The youth ran to the next-door neighbor's home with the alarming news. After Roosevelt police were called, his discovery was confirmed. Fontella Galloway had been gagged and sexually assaulted and her hands were bound behind her waist to the bed. She died of suffocation from the weight of her own body. Galloway was found on June 19, 1969, the same day that a crime conference was being held at Roosevelt Junior High. The conference was being attended by city, county and state law-enforcement agents, who were summoned to the murder scene. Neighbor Ruby Allred had known Galloway for 20 years and described her as "very quiet and independent and did not neighbor very much." Allred said she hadn't noticed any lights on at the Galloway house since about 9:30 p.m. on Sunday, June 15. Allred said she tried to phone the victim on June 17 at 10 a.m. The phone rang only once. She recalled that "it sounded as though someone picked it up and then hung it up."

Additional Details:

Roosevelt Police Chief Dave Roberts essentially turned the investigation and evidence over to the Duchesne County Sheriff's Office, which relied heavily on help from the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Department, which in turn coordinated with city and county law-enforcement agencies. According to remaining police records, the primary suspect in the case was a 58-year-old man who lived near the Galloway house. The man, who was from Cedar City, was working in town at Jack Rasmussen's landscaping business. On June 16, 1969, he unexpectedly called his boss at 7 a.m. and asked for a week of vacation time. He left and never returned. Former Duchesne County Sheriff George Marret recalls trying to interview the man in St. George, but was thwarted by the man's daughter, who was furious with police for contacting her father regarding the murder. There apparently were no other attempts to interview the man. Foot prints lead straight to a suspect, but because of limitations of forensic technology at the time, there was not enough evidence for an arrest. The Galloway murder case was profiled in 1980 by police consultants who said that the execution of the crime pointed to someone who was possibly just starting a killing spree. They said this was the killer's first attempt and that he probably lived nearby. The profile suggested the killer may have been in his 40s and called him an "unorganized killer" because of the way evidence was haphazardly left at the scene. Over the years, critical evidence, such as clothing, fingernail scrapings and documentation, had been lost as they were sent off to other law-enforcement agencies and to crime laboratories for testing. Roosevelt Police Chief Cecil Gurr tracked down what is left of the evidence, some of which was located by Duchesne County sheriff's detective Sgt. Wally Hendricks. They worked with a new state agency to re-examine the unsolved murder, hoping to use advancements in DNA technology so they would have something to rule some people out. Police estimate that Galloway's death went unnoticed for a few days, probably because the 5-foot, 120-pound woman was "a loner who stayed by herself."

Case Last Updated:

Sep 28, 2026