Willard police reports in homicide investigation detail brother’s odd behavior
Jeremy lankford, (Police photo)
Burned Willard home in which firefighters found Eric lankford's body. (BENJAMIN ZACK/Standard-Examiner)
Scene of a fire in Willard where Eric lankford's body was found. (BENJAMIN ZACK/Standard-Examiner)
PDF: Read the Willard police report of the Lankford incident
WILLARD — Newly released documents tied to the house fire that killed Eric Lankford further detail the strange behavior of Jeremy Lankford the night of the fatal blaze that make him a suspect in his brother’s death.
Willard Police Chief Nate Thompson said this week the investigation is yet to be wrapped up and forwarded to the Box Elder County Attorney’s Office for screening for possible charges.
The body of Eric Lankford was found in the ruins of the June 27 fire started at 3 a.m. An autopsy listed the cause of death as smoke inhalation and thermal injury.
Older brother Jeremy was discovered sitting in a truck in view of the fire, refusing to talk to officers. He locked the doors of the truck when the officers asked his name. A Willard and a Perry officer had to break a truck window to forcibly remove him.
Willard police refused to release their reports of the fire at 103 E. 100 North in Willard and a disturbance there two hours earlier in which the brothers were arguing and damaging property.
Perry police, responding to an open records request, released their report of the 1 a.m. disturbance, which included the department’s officer on the scene arguing for Jeremy Lankford’s arrest for assault. He was overruled by on scene by a Willard officer and a Box Elder County sheriff’s sergeant.
Pursuant to an appeal under Utah’s Government Records Access and Management Act by the Standard-Examiner, the Utah State Records Committee this month ordered the Willard reports released. They were made available Tuesday by Willard officials.
The reports include a search warrant for the home, Jeremy Lankford’s truck and his clothing from the night of the fire.
The warrant concludes that police believe the material sought by the warrant tied to Jeremy Lankford “is evidence of the crime or crimes of homicide, arson or aggravated arson.”
Telling detail among the police reports is officers’ behavior at the fire after getting undisclosed information from or about Jeremy Lankford. A section of the report heavily redacted by Chief Thompson appears to cover police conversations with Jeremy Lankford.
In a cover letter, Thompson said the redactions are allowed under the protected records exclusions under GRAMA.
As a result of those redacted discussions, Willard police at the fire scene had begun contacting Box Elder County sheriff’s officials about calling out the county search and rescue teams to search for Eric Lankford in a nearby creek.
That ended when a fire marshal reported finding Eric Lankford’s body in the burned home the brothers shared.
After Jeremy Lankford was removed from the truck, “His clothes and hair were covered in wheat hulls and foxtails as if he had been in a field.”
Like the Perry report released weeks ago on the 1 a.m. incident said, the Willard report confirmed that Eric asked police not to arrest his brother, and “that everything would be OK … they would work it out in the morning.” He admired his brother, he told officers, as an Afghanistan veteran.
Jeremy Lankford refused to talk with officers at that time, even “flipped me off,” as one officer described it.
Nearly all the windows had been broken on one level of the home, according to the report. Eric Lankford told police he broke the windows after Jeremy broke his computer gaming station and television. “Eric said they never pushed, shoved or hit each other, they just broke each other’s property,” reads the report.
Even though he changed his mind about police intervention, Eric had flagged down a passing patrol officer to report the 1 a.m. dispute with his brother, saying he thought he had heard a shot fired. There were no other reports of other evidence of gunfire in what was a residential area, the report noted, and since Eric said the brothers had not struck each other, “no assault had occurred,” the report concluded.
Fifteen other people are listed in the reports as “involved” in the case, with their identities redacted.
Contact reporter Tim Gurrister at 801-625-4238, tgurrister@standard.net. Follow him on Twitter at @tgurrister.