Wyatt Robert D. Radmall
Friday, February 18, 2000Wyatt Robert D. Radmall, age 22 months, passed away Tuesday, February. 15, 2000, returning to his Heavenly Father.
Born April 28, 1998, the son of GayLynn Radmall Goalen.
Wyatt was a very special baby boy, who touched the hearts of all who were near him. He was a gift from God, even if only for the short time he was with us.
Survivors include his mother, GayLynn Radmall Goalen; two brothers, Shawn and Douglas; grandmother, Joan Radmall; two great-grandmothers, Stella Luke and Viola Radmall; aunts and uncles, Shane (Diana) Radmall; Lee Radmall; Suzie (Dan) Heckert; Mike (Liz) Radmall; Tim Radmall; Carrie Snyder; and many cousins who loved him.
Funeral services will be held Saturday, February 19, 2000, 12 noon in the Midway 1st LDS Ward Chapel, 200 South 250 East, Midway, Utah. Friends may call from 10:45-11:45 a.m. prior to the services at the LDS Chapel. Interment will follow in the Midway Cemetery, Midway, Utah. Arrangements in the care of Olpin-Hoopes Funeral Home, Heber City, UT.Mother's Boyfriend Is Charged With Homicide in the Death of Toddler
Saturday, February 26, 2000Deseret News Archives,
Friday, February 25, 2000
Kamas man charged in tot's death
By Brady Snyder Deseret News staff writer
On Feb. 15, 22-month-old Wyatt Robert D. Radmall died under suspicious circumstances in the Kamas home of his mother's boyfriend.
Saturday the family buried the boy in a noon ceremony at Midway Cemetery.
"Wyatt was a very special baby boy who touched the hearts of all who were near him," the family wrote in his obituary. "He was a gift from God, even if only for the short time he was with us."
Since the burial the family has been silent about the death. The child's grandmother, Joan Radmall, Midway, said, "I'm not supposed to talk . . . the police won't let me."
Similarly, Diana Radmall, the child's aunt, said officers and prosecutors put a sort of gag order on the family, urging them not to talk about the case. Still, the family had lingering suspicions about the child's death.
Thursday at 1 p.m., Summit County sheriff's officers added teeth to those suspicions by arresting Lorin S. Leavitt, 32, Kamas, in connection with Wyatt Radmall's death.
Shortly after Leavitt's arrest, the Summit County Attorney's Office charged Leavitt with criminal homicide, a first-degree felony. Prosecutors also filed an alternative charge of child-abuse homicide, a second-degree felony, said Terry Christiansen, chief deputy attorney for Summit County.
The charges follow an intense 10-day investigation by sheriff's office detectives into Wyatt Radmall's death.
The day her son died, GayLynn Radmall-Goalen left the boy in Leavitt's care so she could go to work. Between the time she left and came home, her son had died. Radmall-Goalen has since taken out a restraining order against her former boyfriend.
During the four days between Wyatt Radmall's death and his burial, sheriff's detectives had the State Medical Examiner's Office examine the child's body. The autopsy report showed the boy had suffered contusions to the brain. Investigators also obtained a search warrant for Leavitt's residence in an attempt to acquire forensic evidence about the case. By Thursday prosecutors felt they had gathered enough evidence to link Leavitt to the death, Christiansen said.
Kamas police did not investigate the death because Chief Erikk Ovard is Leavitt's brother-in-law.
Christiansen said information about the case has been intentionally limited but feels his office has fulfilled obligations to the press and the public.BY GREG BURTON
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNEFor 22-month-old Wyatt Robert D. Radmall, the day after Valentine's Day included a morning of play with his mother, a stopover at an aunt's and an evening at his mother's boyfriend's apartment, where, according to court documents, the toddler's head smashed into a closet door.
Just over an hour later, Wyatt was dead.
On Friday, the boyfriend, Lorin Leavitt of Kamas, appeared in 3rd District Court in Summit County on one count of first-degree homicide, or in the alternative, second-degree child-abuse homicide, for allegedly causing Wyatt's death. He is being held in the Summit County jail on $250,000 bond.
According to Leavitt, 31, the night Wyatt died was remarkably routine.
He picked the boy up at 4 p.m., put him down for a nap, took a shower and then gave the toddler a bath.
Leavitt told detectives he placed Wyatt on a couch, walked to the kitchen and then heard a "thud." When he returned, he said, he found the toddler on the floor gasping for air.
A neighbor Leavitt asked for help offered to call an ambulance, but Leavitt declined, saying he would drive the child to the Park City Clinic, court documents allege.
Instead, Leavitt, whose brother-in-law is the Kamas police chief, drove to a Texaco gas station and asked an acquaintance to call an ambulance. Wyatt was in respiratory arrest when paramedics arrived and was later pronounced dead by a doctor at the clinic.
"I didn't mean for you to die," Leavitt allegedly said at the clinic, a nursing supervisor told investigators.
Three days later, the toddler's mother, GayLynn Radmall Goalen, 28, discovered a hole in Leavitt's linen closet door. She told detectives Leavitt appeared "startled" when she asked him about the damage. On Feb. 18, investigators seized the door.
"The location of the hole is consistent with where a child's head could have been smashed or pushed," court documents state. "The hole in the door was examined and blond hairs were located in the fracture lines around theedge of the hole . . . These hairs were compared with hair samples taken from Wyatt Radmall . . . the hair caught in the linen closet door belonged to Wyatt."
Utah County Medical Examiner Todd Grey later told investigators that Wyatt died of "intracranial hemorrhaging" caused by another person and that the injuries were inconsistent with a fall from a couch.
"There were also a number of bruises on Wyatt that were not present when Wyatt was turned over to the defendant" on the night of his death, court documents state.
Terry Christiansen, chief deputy attorney for Summit County, refused to comment on the case. Leavitt's attorney, Gerry D'Elia, was unavailable for comment.
According to Summit County court records, Leavitt has had few brushes with the law, although on Valentine's Day 1998 -- almost two years exactly before Wyatt's death -- he was arrested for violating a protective order. Leavitt pleaded guilty in abeyance to the charge.
Wyatt Radmall's funeral was held Feb. 19 at the Midway 1st LDS Ward Chapel. Family members have been asked not to comment on the case.
"Wyatt was a very special baby boy, who touched the hearts of all who were near him," the boy's family writes in his obituary. "He was a gift from God, even if only for the short time he was with us."