Woman Suspected In Colorado Murder Gets Year In Jail For Role In Fatal Utah Shooting

click to expand

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - The wife of a man accused of fatally shooting a University of Utah student has been sentenced to a year in jail for her role in the killing. The Deseret News reports 23-year-old Kathleen Elizabeth Rose Boutain was sentenced Friday in the 2017 death of ChenWei Guo.

Kathleen Boutain and Austin Boutain (credit: Salt Lake City Police)

Austin Boutain, 24, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in the plea agreement that allowed him to avoid the death penalty. He pleaded guilty to murder and kidnapping charges in September 2018.

Austin Boutain has been extradited to Colorado as both he and his wife are charged with killing Mitchell Ingle, 63, in Golden, three days before Guo's murder. The Boutains planned to steal Ingle's trailer home, authorities said.

Mitch Ingel (credit: CBS)

After Ingle's death, authorities say they drove his truck to Salt Lake City, ditched it and set up camp in a canyon near the university campus, police said. There, they decided to find a car, force the driver to drive to Tennessee, using the driver's money to fund the trip before killing the person, according to charging documents.

After hours of looking for potential victims, Kathleen Boutain got frustrated and left, prosecutors said.

Austin Boutain walked up to Guo's car and knocked on the window to ask if he had seen her. When Gou, 23, who was with a female friend, didn't answer, Boutain "became enraged" and fired at the car until the gun was empty, documents state. Guo was fatally struck in the neck.

The woman escaped and Boutain ran away, setting off a manhunt in the foothills near Salt Lake City. He eluded police for hours by crawling on his belly through thick underbrush and circling back to the city, authorities said.

He was caught when an alert librarian spotted him at the downtown library.