UT UT - Joyce Yost, 39, South Ogden, 10 Aug 1985

[h=1]Joyce Lynn Yost[/h]

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Yost, circa 1985; Douglas Lovell, circa 2010

• Missing Since 08/10/1985
• Missing From South Ogden, Utah
• Classification Endangered Missing
• Date of Birth 01/03/1946 (72)
• Age 39 years old
• Height and Weight 5'5 - 5'7, 120 - 130 pounds
• Clothing/Jewelry Description Several gold chains.
• Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Blonde hair, hazel eyes. Yost has a scar on her chin and a scar on her breast. Her ears are pierced.

[h=3]Details of Disappearance[/h] Yost was last seen in South Ogden, Utah on August 10, 1985. She has never been heard from again. Her car was later found abandoned in the foothills east of town.

Yost disappeared two months after testifying against Douglas Anderson Lovell at his preliminary hearing. She had accused Lovell of kidnapping her in April 1985, taking her to his home in Clearfield, Utah, and raping her. Yost disappeared before his trial, but in December 1985 Lovell was convicted of kidnapping and sexual assault based on her testimony from the preliminary hearing. He was sentenced to two terms of 15 years to life in prison.

A photo of Lovell is posted with this case summary. He was long the prime suspect in Yost's disappearance, and investigators discovered that he'd twice hired friends from prison to murder her between the time of his arrest and the time of the preliminary hearing. (Lovell had met the men while he was serving a previous sentence for an armed robbery conviction. Neither of them actually tried to kill Yost.)

For years investigators lacked the evidence to charge him in her disappearance, until his wife agreed to wear a wire when she went to visit him in prison in 1991 and 1992. Lovell made incriminating statements about Yost's disappearance, saying he could get the death penalty for the crimes he had committed.

In 1993, on the day his murder trial was scheduled to begin, Lovell pleaded guilty to Yost's murder. He stated he broke into Yost's apartment while she was sleeping and threatened her with a knife. She pleaded for her life and promised to drop the sex assault case against him. He then drugged her with Valium, packed a suitcase of her belongings to make it look as if she'd left on her own, took her to a canyon outside of town and strangled her. He said he buried her body in a shallow grave in the Ogden Valley.

Prosecutors agreed not to seek a death sentence against Lovell if he would lead them to Yost's body. He was unable to find the exact spot where he'd buried her, however, in spite of a five-week search. He was sentenced to death in August 1993. He attempted to withdraw his guilty plea weeks later in a letter to the judge, claiming he had not been advised of his constitutional rights.

In September 2010, the Utah Supreme Court overturned his conviction and death sentence on those grounds. In April 2015, Lovell was convicted of murder at trial, sentenced to death again and returned to death row.

Lovell was questioned about his possible involvement in the disappearances of two other Utah women, Sheree Warren and Theresa Greaves. He maintained his innocence in those cases and cooperated with the investigations. He has not been linked to either of those cases. Greaves's remains were discovered in 2015; her death is under investigation. Warren has never been found.

Yost was declared legally dead in 1992. Foul play is suspected in her case due to the circumstances involved.

http://charleyproject.org/case/joyce-lynn-yost

https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/1383/

Here is an article on peope still missing in Weber Davis and Box Elder counties. Joyce Yost among them.
13 people still missing in Weber, Davis and Box Elder counties

A man with a distinctive stammer phoned police 34 years ago and claimed to have found a body in the mountains near Causey, a reservoir on the South Fork of the Ogden River.

"I didn't touch the body or anything because I didn't want to get fingerprints on it, OK," the man told a dispatcher, "but I noticed there was a purse there."

The man refused to identify himself or provide more specific information about where police might find the body, saying only that it was two to three miles back from the reservoir. The man hung up when a Weber County dispatcher told him she needed to put him in touch with an investigator.

"Well, just a minute now," the man said. "I have other things to do, you know. I'm not interested in meeting search parties or anything like that."

Police have never identified the caller or located the body he reported finding. At least one former investigator believes tracking down the remains could hold the key to closing at least one decades-old missing persons cold case.
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"Cold's" second season focuses on the August 1985 disappearance of Joyce Yost from South Ogden. Some have speculated the unrecovered remains reported by the caller could belong to Yost.

Joyce Yost, pictured with her son Greg Roberts in this undated photo, was last seen on the night of Aug. 10, 1985. Her remains have never been located or recovered. (Photo: Joyce Yost family)
Yost had been preparing to testify against Douglas Lovell in a rape case when she disappeared. A jury convicted Lovell of sexually assaulting Yost, even though the trial was held in her absence. Years later, in 1991, Lovell's ex-wife Rhonda Buttars told police Lovell had taken Yost "up by Causey" and killed her there, leaving Yost's body and purse in the mountains.

Buttars wore a hidden recording device into the Utah State Prison in 1992. That audio, obtained by "Cold," included multiple mentions of the anonymous caller.

"The only thing I'm nervous about is that one time that caller called in," Lovell said. "I remember seeing it on TV."

Lovell admitted to killing Yost in 1993. He at the time claimed to have left Yost's body at a different location, below Snowbasin ski resort. An exhaustive search of that area by law enforcement failed to turn up any sign of Yost's remains or her purse.

Lovell's father also owned a cabin property at Sunridge Highlands, a private landowner association accessed using the same highway that leads to Causey. Lovell was known to visit the cabin during the months prior to Yost's disappearance.
'Cold': A caller claimed he found a body near a reservoir, but police could never locate it. Could it have been Joyce Yost?

*linking Sheree Warren thread
UT - UT - Sheree Warren, 25, Salt Lake City, 2 Oct 1985