Walter Kelbach and Myron Lance were two men on parole from the Utah State Prison who, over five days in December 1966, were linked to the deaths of six people in the Salt Lake area. A jury convicted each of them of first-degree murder in April 1967 for two of those deaths, which occurred in a single robbery in Salt Lake City on December 21. They were sentenced to die. When the United States Supreme Court's 1972 ruling on capital punishment cleared the way for their sentences to be reduced, they became life prisoners, and the Utah Board of Pardons decided in 1992 that neither should ever be paroled. Lance died at University Hospital in 2010. Kelbach died in 2018, after 51 years in custody.
Only two of the six deaths produced a conviction. At a parole hearing in May 1992 both men acknowledged all six. What a jury decided and what the men later admitted are two different things.
When the killings began, Kelbach was 28 and came from Racine, Wisconsin, according to the Salt Lake Tribune. Lance was 25. Both were on parole from the Utah State Prison, the Deseret News reported in 1992, when it described them as men in their twenties at the time of the crimes. The Tribune reported that Lance and Kelbach teamed up on December 17, 1966. Their upbringing, schooling and the offenses that had put them in prison are not on record.
The six people who died were Steven Shea, 18; Michael Holtz, 18; Grant Creed Strong; Fred W. Lillie, 20; James Sisemore, 47; and Beverly Mace, 34. Spellings and ages differ a little from one account to another. The Deseret News writes Sisemore, while the Tribune and the Utah Supreme Court write Sizemore; one magazine gives Lillie's age as 21, where the Deseret News and the Tribune say 20.
Shea and Holtz were 18 years old. According to the Tribune, their deaths came on December 17 and 18, and the cases against the two men over those deaths were later filed in Tooele and Summit counties. Lillie was the youngest son of his family; he died the day after the December 21 robbery, the Deseret News reported in 1992. Little more about the victims' lives is on record. Three other people were at the scene of the December 21 robbery and survived. One was wounded and recovered, and two of the survivors later identified the two men in a lineup, the Utah Supreme Court recorded.
The Salt Lake Tribune dated the start of the five days to December 17, 1966. Shea's death is linked to an incident that day, and Holtz's to one on December 18. Charges over both deaths were later filed in Tooele and Summit counties and dismissed.
On December 21, Strong died in Salt Lake City, and about half an hour later, according to the Tribune, the robbery in which Sisemore, Lillie and Mace died took place in the same city. The Utah Supreme Court recorded that Lillie, Mace and Sisemore died and that another person was wounded. The two men were arrested in Parleys Canyon a few hours later. The Deseret News said police arrested them about three hours after the robbery and that the arrest was made without incident.
The Tribune reported that the two earlier incidents brought the men less than $300.
The State of Utah charged both men with the murders of James Sisemore and Fred Lillie. It did not try them in 1967 over the other four deaths. A jury found both guilty of first-degree murder in April 1967. Under Utah law of the day a jury could recommend life imprisonment; it did not, and the court sentenced both to death. Each chose the means by which the sentence would be carried out; the Deseret News reported that Lance and Kelbach made different choices.
The Utah Supreme Court's 1969 opinion records that the trial court denied a request for a year's delay because of publicity, that jurors were questioned on their views about the death penalty, and that two survivors of the December 21 robbery identified the men in a lineup. It also records that the court found any mention at trial of earlier photographs of the defendants harmless because guilt had been conclusively shown by competent evidence.
On November 10, 1969, the Utah Supreme Court affirmed both convictions. Justice Callister wrote the opinion, joined by Chief Justice Crockett and Justices Tuckett and Henriod, with Justice Ellett concurring. The defendants argued that Utah's single proceeding for guilt and penalty forced a choice between speaking to the court and the privilege against self-incrimination, that capital punishment was cruel and unusual, that jurors had no guidelines for choosing between death and life, that publicity had prejudiced the case, that the death-penalty questions put to jurors excluded too many, and that identification procedures were flawed. The court rejected each argument. Justice Ellett added that in Utah a jury did not fix the penalty and that a judge could still impose death after a jury recommended leniency.
On November 16, 1968, Kelbach and Lance were among nine maximum-security prisoners who got out of the new facility at Draper, the Deseret News recounted in its archive feature of November 2024. All nine were recaptured within about two days. Kelbach, Lance and one other man were arrested a few hours after the escape in Burley, Idaho. The legal outcome of the escape is not on record. The Deseret News also reported in 1992 that in 1968 Lance had attacked a prison guard, and that in 1967 Lance's wife had been arrested and imprisoned for smuggling items and an escape-route map to him.
In 1972 the United States Supreme Court decided Stewart v. Massachusetts, in a short ruling that cited Furman v. Georgia and held that imposing and carrying out the death penalty was cruel and unusual punishment. In the case of Lance and Kelbach the Court vacated the Utah judgment insofar as it left the death sentences undisturbed and sent the case back (408 U.S. 935 (1972)). The Utah Supreme Court did not act at once. On January 18, 1977, it returned the matter to the district court "for further proceedings in accordance with the law." Chief Justice Ellett dissented, writing that the lower court should set a new execution date and noting that the men had admitted on national television to the murder of many people and said they would do it again if released.
The district court imposed life imprisonment in place of death. The state appealed that sentence. On September 9, 1977, in State v. Kelbach, 569 P.2d 1100, the Utah Supreme Court granted the defendants' motion and dismissed the state's appeal, holding that the statute allowing the state to appeal from an order made after judgment did not reach a sentence, which was part of the judgment itself. Justice Ellett dissented again. The Deseret News reported in 1997 that the death sentences became life terms with the possibility of parole in 1977, and that Kelbach was not resentenced until about ten years after the jury's verdict. Some accounts place the commutation in 1972 or the mid 1970s; the court records show the 1972 ruling and the 1977 sentencing and dismissal as the legal steps.
The Utah Supreme Court's 1977 dissent refers to an interview on national television in which both men said they had killed many people and would do so again. Salt Lake Magazine described it as an NBC interview given in prison after the 1967 verdict, in which Lance said he had no feeling toward the victims and Kelbach said he did not mind people being hurt.
The Deseret News reported in 1992 that the charges filed in Summit and Tooele counties over the deaths of Holtz and Shea were dismissed. After Utah reinstated its death penalty, Attorney General Robert Hansen filed murder charges over Holtz's death; a federal judge dismissed that case, finding that bringing it 13 years after the crime violated the men's constitutional rights. The Summit County Bee reported on May 16, 1980, that a complaint charging murder was before a judge in Summit County, that the two men had written to the prison warden asking for a speedy trial, and that a preliminary hearing was set for June 4. Its dismissal was reported in 1992.
In November 1992 Kelbach asked 3rd District Judge Anne M. Stirba to release him or resentence him to the lowest degree of murder then in force, which he said was second-degree murder with a term of ten years to life. The judge continued the matter to December 7 so that a lawyer could be appointed. In February 1994 the Associated Press reported that Kelbach had taken a pro se appeal to the Utah Supreme Court, and that an assistant attorney general argued he had waited about 16 years too long. The court's ruling is not on record.
By May 1992 the two men had been denied parole twice, the last time in 1982, the Deseret News reported. The hearing that month was the third. It was the first at which relatives of victims could address the board in person, a right granted in 1988; the Lillie family said they had not been told about earlier hearings. About 20 relatives attended. Board of Pardons member Michael Sibbett heard a recounting of the killings, and both men acknowledged all six. Fred Lillie's father and sister addressed the board; Steven Shea's mother said that attending made her ill but that she did not regret it. Lance said he could not undo the harm and did not expect to be paroled, and asked what he would decide in the board's place, said he did not see how he could ever be released. Kelbach did not respond to the Lillies. Sibbett said the case had more aggravating circumstances than any he had studied.
The Deseret News reported in November 1992 that the board unanimously denied parole to both men and recommended that they spend the rest of their lives in prison with no parole consideration by future boards. The Tribune's account of 2010 says the board ordered that the pair spend their natural lives in prison, citing extremely aggravating factors.
In the late 1970s Kelbach also tried to adopt a younger parolee so that he could claim Social Security benefits; the courts rejected the attempt, the Deseret News reported in 1992. In December 1997 the Deseret News listed both men among the longest continuous residents of the Utah State Prison, with Kelbach almost 60 and about 30 years into his sentence.
Myron Lance, 69, of Salt Lake City, died of natural causes on a Monday morning at University Hospital, the Salt Lake Tribune reported on August 31, 2010. The Utah Department of Corrections said he had been taken from the prison to the hospital on August 15. He was serving a life sentence. The Deseret News carried the same report and quoted the department spokesman Steve Gehrke confirming the death.
At the time, the Tribune said Kelbach, 72, remained in the state prison at Gunnison. The Deseret News said in November 2024 that Kelbach died in 2018 after 51 years in prison, and Salt Lake Magazine gave the same year. The exact date and the manner of his death are not on record.
The six deaths are not all alike in their legal status. The two on December 21 in Salt Lake City, those of James Sisemore and Fred Lillie, led to convictions. Beverly Mace died in the same robbery, and the charges tried in 1967 named only Sisemore and Lillie. The deaths of Steven Shea, Michael Holtz and Grant Strong were not the subject of any conviction; the charges in Tooele and Summit counties were dismissed, a later charge over Holtz was dismissed by a federal judge, and no charge over Strong is on record. The attribution of all six deaths to the men rests on their statements at the 1992 hearing, which the Deseret News reported, and on their television remarks as described in a court dissent. Details also vary: the spelling Sisemore or Sizemore, Lillie's age (20 or 21), and the year of the commutation (1972 or 1977).
December 17, 1966: Lance, 25, and Kelbach, 28, both on parole, begin the five days of incidents the Tribune described.
December 18, 1966: second incident, which the Tribune linked to Michael Holtz's death.
December 21, 1966: Grant Creed Strong dies in Salt Lake City; that night a robbery leaves James Sisemore, Fred Lillie and Beverly Mace dead; both men are arrested in Parleys Canyon.
April 1967: a jury convicts both of first-degree murder for Sisemore and Lillie; both are sentenced to death.
November 16, 1968: both escape with seven others and are recaptured within about two days.
November 10, 1969: the Utah Supreme Court affirms the convictions.
1972: the U.S. Supreme Court vacates the death sentences and sends the case back.
January 18, 1977: the Utah Supreme Court returns the matter to the district court.
September 9, 1977: after life terms are imposed, the Utah Supreme Court dismisses the state's appeal.
1980: a murder complaint is pending in Summit County; later dismissed.
May 1992: third parole hearing; both acknowledge the six deaths. The Board of Pardons later denies parole and recommends life.
February 1994: Kelbach's pro se appeal is before the Utah Supreme Court.
August 2010: Lance dies at University Hospital of natural causes, aged 69.
2018: Kelbach dies after 51 years in prison.