[media id=13 width=320 height=240]
A Utah woman’s defense that she was forced to participate in a crime spree that left an elderly couple dead and critically injured a Wendover woman went up in smoke Tuesday with the testimony of her victim.
In sometimes chilling testimony local Wendover businesswoman, Rattana Keomanivong gave graphic details that far from the shrinking violet she and her family portrayed her to be Angela Marie Hill was a foul mouthed, vicious criminal bent on murder.
[media id=2 width=320 height=240]
Ironically Keomanivong testimony came in the preliminary hearing of Hill’s accomplice Logan Welles McFarland who is expected to be bound over this week on a host of felony charges including kidnapping and car theft.
Elko County Assistant District attorney Rob Lowe called 30 witnesses in the hearing but it was Keomanivong that was the most devastating to Hill’s claim that she was also ‘victim’ of McFarland.
Keomanivong related that from the very beginning it was Hill who played the leaders role first in assaulting Keomanivong, forcing the Wendover woman into her car at gun point and then after Keomanivong fought off the female desperado it was Hill who shot her in the head.
Hill first made the claim that she was forced by McFarland to go along on his bi-state, New Years crime spree in a jail house interview with the Salt Lake Tribune. During it she openly wept and professed her innocence even showing the reporter missing teeth she claim McFarland knocked out when she attempted to escape him.
During her very first court appearance in Elko last month, Hill also fell over sobbing while the charges against her were read.
The display had little effect on either Judge Barbara Nethery or viewers of the video.
“I wasn’t impressed,” said one comment on the High Desert Advocate’s web page where it is being aired. “ As soon as she (Hill) has a question she stops crying and you can’t even see a tear.”
The display was also very familiar to people from Hill’s hometown in Farmington, Utah.
“That is exactly how she acted when she got caught stealing, smoking or skipping school,” said one resident. “Most of the time it worked she is a good looking girl who looks and acts so remorseful. So you give her a second chance.”
With Keomanivong testifying against her, Hill may be out of second chances.
Her preliminary hearing will be scheduled this week and could take place within the month.
Meanwhile Hill who also goes by a variety of other aliases waived her right to fight extradition to Utah where she has one fugitive warrant stemming from an end of the year crime spree that began in rural Sanpete County, Utah December 28 and ended in the Nevada outback January 5th. Hill’s partner in crime, Logan Welles McFarland, 24, told the court that unlike Hill he would be fighting extradition.
The reason why the Bonnie of the Bonnie and Clyde duo wants to return to Utah and why the Clyde wishes to stay in the Silver State may have something to do with the separate charges they are facing or will face in the coming weeks.
While only wanted for burglary for now in Utah, Hill is facing aggravated attempted murder charges in Nevada. McFarland’s charge of kidnapping pales in comparison to the double murder charges he will most likely face in the coming weeks from Utah for the killing of an elderly Sanpete couple.
“Maybe she thinks she could avoid the charges somehow if she is extradited to Utah to stand trial there first,” explained a judicial officer familiar with the case. “There are a lot of factors in any extradition case. But there is no way she will avoid the Nevada charges. The best she could hope for is to delay them, while she sits in a prison cell in Utah.”
McFarland also has not been charged yet in the Utah murders but is identified as a person of interest.