University Of Utah Student Slain: Husband, Wife Charged

SALT LAKE CITY, UT — Austin and Kathleen Boutain watched cars for hours as she pointed out potential carjacking victims at a canyon near the University of Utah last month, prosecutors said in court documents. Frustrated at his reluctance to attack someone in broad daylight, she called him a coward and the couple fought. He pistol-whipped her and she walked down to the university to report him, authorities said.

After she left, he attacked student Chenwei Guo, 23, and tried to drag Guo's female friend up a nearby canyon, police said. But she took off — narrowly escaping shots he fired at her — and called police.

The couple were drifters who fled to Utah after cutting the throat of Mitchell Ingle, 63, and stealing his guns in Golden, Colorado, authorities have said. They met Ingle a couple times before they started drinking and smoking marijuana at his trailer home three days before Guo's killing, police said. Austin Boutain became angry when Ingle made sexual comments and the pair decided he would kill the older man so they could take his trailer, according to Colorado court documents. Austin Boutain cut Ingle's throat and the couple grabbed three guns and drove off in his pickup truck, headed for Utah, Colorado police said.

Ingle's body was found in his home a few days later, after Guo's death. Police said the husband and wife both were both wearing his clothes when they were arrested.

Austin Boutain, a 24-year-old ex-convict, was charged with aggravated murder, robbery and a dozen other counts on Thursday. Kathleen Boutain was charged with six counts, including criminal solicitation and theft.

No attorneys were listed for the Boutains on Thursday.

Austin Boutain has a rap sheet that includes drug, car theft and weapons charges dating back to his days as a juvenile. He was released from an Alabama prison this spring, but skipped parole in Wisconsin a few months later and wound up living under a bridge with his wife in Golden, Colorado, authorities said.

In Salt Lake City, they lived around a homeless shelter for a couple days before setting up camp in Red Butte Canyon, where they hatched the plot to find a car, force the driver inside and make their way to Tennessee, the Thursday charges state. They planned to use the victim's money to fund the trip before killing them.

Austin Boutain used one of the guns stolen from Ingle to kill Guo, a computer-science student from China, police said. He told police he knocked on Guo's car window shortly after his wife walked away to ask if he'd seen her, but when Guo didn't answer he "became enraged" and fired at the car until the gun was empty.

Guo died of a gunshot wound to the neck.

The killing set off a manhunt in the foothills near Salt Lake City, but Austin Boutain managed to escape by crawling on his belly through the thick underbrush and dropping into a well-to-do neighborhood on Salt Lake City's north side, police said.

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

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST, Associated Press

Photo credit: Salt Lake County Jail via AP