The Hi-Fi Murders in Ogden, Utah
Ogden, Utah
With its multiple rivers and ideal position at the base of a mountain range, Ogden, Utah can be an idyllic place to live. In the spring of 1974, however, the picturesque city was the site of a ghastly crime that its citizens still remember after over forty years.
The Hi-Fi Shop was a small record store located in downtown Ogden. On the evening of April 22, 1974, employees Stanley Walker (20) and Sherry Michelle Ansley (18) were closing for the night. It had been a quiet Monday, and Ansley’s first week on the job. The peaceful atmosphere of the store was interrupted when two men, Pierre Dale Selby (21) and William Andrews (19), entered. Both were airmen stationed at nearby Hill Air Force Base.
Walker and Ansley were forced down into the shop’s basement at gunpoint. After tying them up, the intruders went back upstairs to ransack the place. As the robbery was happening, Cortney Naisbitt (16) stopped by and was also taken hostage. Shortly thereafter, Orren Walker (43) and Carol Naisbitt (52) came into the store looking for their respective sons. They too were led to the basement by gunpoint. The situation then rapidly devolved from a robbery and kidnapping to something far more sinister.
Deciding that the victims had to die, Selby had Andrews retrieve a mysterious liquid from their van. The men told the hostages that it was a concoction containing vodka and sleeping pills. All victims except Ansley had the liquid forced down their throats and their mouths were duct taped shut. The four began to emit muffled screams of pain as their throats and mouths blistered. Rather than vodka as claimed, they had been given industrial strength Drano. The men thought it would be quieter and less painful than shooting them, but their victims’ bodies rejected the caustic liquid. It burbled out and the tape could no longer hold.
Frustrated that his murderous idea was more difficult than expected, Selby shot Walker, Naisbitt, Orren, and Carol. Each victim took at least one bullet to the back of the skull. Ansley, unharmed but pleading for her life, was dragged to a corner by Selby. There he forced her to undress and then sexually assaulted her. Afterwards, still naked, she was thrown back with the group and also shot in the head. At this time, the assailants realized that Orren was somehow still alive. When garroting the man also failed to kill him, they shoved a pen in his ear and kicked until it burst out through his throat. Satisfied with their heinous work, Selby and Andrews left with $25,000 in stolen goods.
Concerned that neither Orren nor his son had returned home, other Walker family members came to the Hi-Fi Shop and discovered the dreadful scene. While Orren and Naisbitt lived through the extreme efforts taken to kill them, the other victims did not survive.
Thanks to their own bragging to other airmen, Selby and Andrews were promptly caught. When executed in 1987, Selby became the first person in the state to die by lethal injection. Andrews was put to death five years after his partner in crime.
Adam Quirk, MCJ, MBA, is a criminal justice professional, blog writer, and private investigator from Wisconsin.