Salt Lake Police investigate a scene in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022. Salt Lake police arrested a man accused of strangling his wife over the weekend. Her body was found Tuesday.
Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News
A Salt Lake man who told police he suffers from a mental illness has been arrested and accused of strangling his wife.
Larry Edward Johnson, 63, was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail on Tuesday for investigation of murder and obstructing justice.
Johnson is accused of killing his wife, Victoria Johnson, 71, on Sunday in their apartment at 535 S. 200 East. He later went to a relative's house in Pleasant Grove and told family members what had happened, according to a police booking affidavit. His family contacted Pleasant Grove police who then asked Salt Lake police on Tuesday to conduct a welfare check.
"Officers responded to this location and located a deceased female with injuries consistent to that of an assault and strangulation," the affidavit states.
After Pleasant Grove police took Larry Johnson into custody, detectives transferred him back to Salt Lake County for questioning. He told police that "he is diagnosed as bipolar and has not been taking his medications for several months. (Johnson) stated that he 'lost the ability to protect his wife' and that he repeatedly struck his wife while she was sitting in her chair and then strangled her to death,'" according to the affidavit.
He also told police he had been "hearing voices," the arrest report says
Detectives also found evidence that Johnson had been "taking multiple trips to the garbage over the last few days and throughout the last couple of nights," that he was "throwing a large amount of property from the apartment into the dumpster and removing luggage cases out to the parking lot," and was "dumping silverware down the garbage shoot," according to the affidavit.
The dresser drawers and closets in Johnson's apartment were mostly empty, and the crime scene was "altered," according to police.