Officer Don Wagstaff
Died on December 23, 1970
Age 56Utah Department of Corrections
Homicide: Suffocation
Officer Don Wagstaff was killed by an inmate at Point of the Mountain. The 56-year-old victim was supervising an early morning work detail at the prison dairy. When the victim discovered an inmate loafing, an altercation ensued and the inmate attacked Officer Wagstaff with a pair of hoof clippers. After beating the victim unconscious, the assailant bound his feet and covered him with grain causing him to suffocate. Taking the victim’s watch, wallet and coat, the assailant fled the dairy with another inmate. The two were arrested in a cab on Redwood Road a few hours later. The inmate was convicted of second-degree murder. He was paroled in 1983. Officer Wagstaff was married and the father of two grown children. He is buried in American Fork Cemetery. His bronze memorial plaque is sponsored by the Utah Department of Corrections.
You were killed when I was just a baby… Now I lay awake nights wondering if the man I love will make it home safely because he too, guards the point. It is a gross miscarriage of justice that your murderer was paroled. Surely just to prove that the justice system holds no grudges. Well, sometimes grudges SHOULD be held. The killing of an officer in the line of duty should ALWAYS be answered with capital punishment. SWIFTLY