It was nearly Christmas of 1990 & sisters, 20-year-old Linae Tiede & 16-year-old Trish were excited to be spending the holidays with family at their Utah cabin in the mountains in Weber Canyon, near Oakley. The house was a respite from the typical daily grind & a quiet getaway, two miles off the road. They’d nicknamed their vacation spot, “Tiede’s Tranquility” because of the peace & solitude it offered. The location was so remote that it could only be reached by snowmobile in the winter after the snow blanketed the ground. The family considered the cabin heaven on earth because it was such an escape from reality & a place to gather with family.
Linae later said that her mom, 49-year-old Kaye Tidwell Tiede & her grandmother, 76-year-old Beth Tidwell Potts had decorated the cabin to a cozy Christmas scene finished with their stockings hung on the fireplace mantle.
On December 22, two days before Christmas Eve, the family headed out to run some last minute errands in Salt Lake City. Little did they know, as they excitedly shopped, two men had broken into their cabin & were lying in wait. 25-year-old Von Lester Taylor & 21-year-old Steven Deli were parolees who should have been out job hunting & were instead out on the run for more than a week from a halfway house they’d left on December 14. Deli had been in prison for five years for arson in 1989 while Taylor was serving 15 years for aggravated burglary.
While in the cabin, Taylor called a fellow prisoner from the Orange Street Community Corrections Center in Salt Lake City & told the person that they were planning to burglarize some cabins & while they were at it, they would wait for the residents of the home to arrive so they could shoot them & take their car.
As Linae, Kaye & Beth finished their shopping & headed home, they had no idea the danger that awaited them. The trio were the first to arrive & as they made their way through the snow & bitter cold, they began to approach the front door. Linae asked her mom to hurry & unlock the door since her hands were freezing cold. As she waited by the door, she saw a flash of movement near the refrigerator & assumed a cousin had arrived & planned to jump out at her when she came inside & scare her in good fun.
As she got inside & began to set her things down, Linae watched in horror as a frizzy-haired man in a gray sweatshirt came out from his hiding spot behind the refrigerator, holding a gun that he pointed at her. Her first thought was that he was going to rob them & be on his way. As her mom got to the top of the stairs, another man came out of hiding in the back bedroom, wearing thick coke-bottle glasses, also holding a gun. Kaye asked the men what they wanted & told them they could have anything they wanted.
Seconds after Kaye finished speaking, without any warning or hesitation, Taylor shot Beth & Kaye before they could even grasp what was happening. Linae remembers watching in horror as her mom fell to the ground & the next thing she knew, she looked over her shoulder & saw her grandmother get shot in the head. She said that blood sprayed everywhere & her grandmother gasped for breath. She said that everything seemed to be moving in slow motion as her mom grasped her chest & said, “I’ve been shot.”
The room suddenly grew still & Linae knew at that point that both her mom & grandma were gone.
Despite the trauma she had just experienced, Linae began to quickly think, trying to figure out how the rest of her family could get out of the unthinkable situation alive. She had the wherewithal to try to get the men out of the cabin before her dad & little sister had a chance to arrive home, knowing that her dad typically left the car keys under the mat. Rolf & Trish were shortly behind, on their way up the mountain, completely unaware of the horrors that awaited them.
Sadly, Linae could hear the distant sound of a snowmobile getting closer & at this point, the man in the gray sweatshirt grabbed Linae from behind, his arm around her neck, a gun held to her back. Despite her efforts, Rolf & Trish pulled into the driveway & one of the men immediately jumped out from the garage wearing a full ski mask & ordered them inside the cabin. This was when Rolf saw, to his horror, that his oldest daughter was held captive.
Linae said that Rolf saw the tears in her eyes & they shared an unspoken communication & at that point, Rolf knew that something terrible had happened to his wife & mother-in-law. The men asked Rolf if he had money & he took whatever he had from his pockets & threw it to the floor. Deli, the man in the thick glasses, was instructed by Taylor to shoot Rolf, but after he cocked the gun, he refused to fire. Taylor, who was restraining Linae, pulled his gun out, pointed it at Rolf & pulled the trigger once, but there was no fire. The same thing happened the second time he pulled the trigger. On the third attempt, they remember the blast from the gun being so intense that they could feel it. The third shot hit Rolf in the face & he immediately crumpled to the ground. Linae remembers feeling convinced that her father was dead, just as her mom & grandma were.
As Linae looked around the cabin, she could tell the men had been there for a while; there was food eaten & Christmas presents had been torn open. She could tell that they hadn’t been startled upon their arrival & that they had waited for them to arrive. She couldn’t imagine what horror remained.
The cabin was alway fully stocked with gas cans for the snowmobiles & the girls watched as the men began scurring around, pouring gas around the cabin & set it on fire. The fire began to blaze & the smoke alarms blared. At this point, the men had a sense of urgency & told Trish & Linae that they needed to hurry & load the snowmobiles so they could get out of there. They both listened to their instructions & hoped they could eventually make their escape.
The men forced Linae & Trish out of the house, leaving Rolf for dead. Linae & Trish were each forced to drive a snowmobile, a man riding behind each. At this point, someone in a nearby cabin called authorities after they heard gunshots; when they looked out, they saw the snowmobiles fleeing into the distance.
Trish felt sure that she & her sister would be murdered next & as she drove, she wracked her brain to come up with a way that they could escape. She expected that she & Linae would be murdered once they reached the road. Trish had a thought to wreck the snowmobile & throw the man off & into a tree, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it because she didn’t want to leave her sister. She knew that at that moment, they were in the middle of the mountains & there was no one to help them & nowhere safe to go.
As they made their way down to the gate to the main road, Linae & Trish saw their uncle, Randy Zorn, who had just arrived for a holiday visit. When Randy spotted his nieces on the snowmobiles, he assumed they were taking friends for a ride & began to wave at them. The girls, knowing that their uncle was in great risk for also being murdered, ignored his greeting & sped by. Randy thought it was very strange that his own nieces would ignore him like that. When the man on the back of her snowmobile asked who that was, Trish lied & told him it must just be a friendly person who lived up there.
When they reached the spot where they parked the family car, the men forced them into the back. They each had a gun & as they got into the car, Trish saw one of the men putting his gun into the trunk. He opened his coat & showed her that he also had a knife & warned her that he was just as good at using his knife as he was his gun. As they were pulling away, Randy saw the family’s Lincoln pull out & noticed Linae in the back. He began waving & gesturing for them to stop. Linae & Trish continued to ignore their uncle, sure he would be killed if they acknowleged him.
The car drove right by & Randy couldn’t understand what was going on & why his nieces were acting so strangely. As he continued to process what was happening, he saw another snowmobile approaching. Randy noticed that the driver was not dressed for the frigid weather, wearing no helmet, no coat or gloves. As the snowmobile got closer, he was able to recognize that it was his brother Rolf & his face was covered in blood.
Randy was shocked at the sight of Rolf & described his face as huge & full of blood, his eye was swollen shut & blood icicles hung off his face. Rolf, who had miraculously survived being shot in the face & set on fire, told Randy what had happened back at the cabin. What Linae & Trish hadn’t known at that moment was that after their dad had been shot, he played dead. After they left, he managed to struggle to the bathroom where he tore off his burning snowsuit & jumped into the shower to put out the flames. He then jumped onto the snowmobile in hopes of saving his daughters.
Randy, seeing that Rolf was terribly injured, ushered Rolf into the backseat as he climbed into the driver’s seat. Despite the fact that it was only 1990, Randy’s car was equipt with a cellphone that he was able to use to call 911. The cell service was poor in the cayon & Randy called repeatedly until he connected. As he continued to call, Randy caught up to the Lincoln & tried to quickly brainstorm how to handle the situation, questioning if he should try to run the car off the road.
When the call finally connected, Randy told the Summit County Sheriff’s Department the direction in which the murderers were headed. As he explained that he also needed a medic helicopter for his brother, the call dropped. Randy quickly found a gas station & used the pay phone to call 911 & Rolf was airlifted to a hospital in critical condition.
As authorities caught up with the killers, a terrifying 90mph pursuit began through several towns until the attackers lost control of the car & tumbled down an embankment. Amazingly, the girls were not injured & they crawled out of the car, their hands raised & told police they were being held hostage. Police surrounded the car & the men surrendered. Linae begged the officers to just shoot the men, screaming that they had just killed their mom, dad & grandma. Linae & Trish soon learned that not only had their father been shot, but he had also been doused with gasoline & set on fire & had somehow found the strength to blindly fly down the mountain on a snowmobile to save his daughters. They always knew their dad was their hero but with that knowledge, it put an exclaimation point on the fact.
After being arrested, the men were charged with two counts of first-degree murder, one count of attempted first-degree murder & two counts of aggravated kidnapping. They were also charged with aggravated assault, theft, arson & failure to heed a police signal to stop.
Police later discovered that after the men had gone on the run, they hitchhiked to that particular location because Taylor’s family had owned a cabin in the area. After spending several days on the mountain, breaking into various empty cabins, authorities theorize that they saw the Tiede family leave, broke into their cabin & waited for them to come back home.
As police began to search the crime scene, they found a 12-18 inch puddle of blood in the garage that had quickly frozen in the sub-zero temperatures. The first deputy to arrive at the scene immediately smelled burning hair & clothing as they made their way through the cabin. Bullet holes littered the walls across from the stairwell & the cabin looked like a mini war zone.
As the house was searched, the police found that the top floor was on fire & the once peaceful & cozy cabin was now covered in blood. The living room carpet was saturated in blood & based on the crime scene, police could see that after the women were killed, the men dragged them across the living room floor & onto the deck outside. They covered them with a blanket & snow to hide what they’d done. Blood pooled on the wooden planks & oozed through, forming red icicles underneath.
Authorities’ number one concern was to rescue anyone in the cabin that might need assistance & their second priority was to preserve evidence. One of the most significant pieces of evidence was a VHS tape they found inside a video camera.
As investigators started to play the tape, they expected to see smiling faces on the family’s home movies before their lives had been turned upside down by the vicious & random attack. Instead, they found video of the attackers opening the Tiede family’s Christmas presents as they sat next to their tree. The video was shot by Deli & in the video, an armed Taylor, happily ripped open the presents.
Instead of celebrating Christmas together in the cozy cabin like they’d planned, three days after Christmas, Beth Potts was laid to rest. Linea remembers her grandmother as an energetic woman who was fun, happy & vivacious. She describes her as full of life & remembers that her grandma would give her home perms that she later recognized as being awful. Kaye was laid to rest on the same day as her mother. Kaye was known to be an extremely devoted mother who put her children at top priority. Trisha describes her mom as the perfect friend; someone who was never judgemental & always willing to open her home with love.
This case was never a question of whodunit as there was no question who committed the crimes. What was a challenge was determining what criminal act each suspect committed. From Linae’s perspective, both men were equally responsible. Police learned that Von Taylor had come from a normal, decent family & had a typical childhood, but at some point, he started to get in trouble with the law. Neither man was known to have a violent history.
About five months after this horrific home invasion, Von Taylor pleaded guilty to two counts of capital murder. The state dropped all the other charges against him in exchange for his guilty plea. He went to trial before a jury & during his testimony, he was argumentative & had convenient memory lapses, answering “It happened so quick, I don’t know.” The jury decided that he should receive the death sentence for each murder. During his time in court, Taylor had no remorse & no regard for life whatsoever.
When Edward Steven Deli went to trial a couple of weeks after Taylor was sentenced, his lawyer argued that it was Taylor who did all the shooting. Investigators assumed he would also be convicted of first-degree murder. Instead, he was convicted of second-degree murder due to a hold-out of one juror. The family was stunned by the decision & they wanted this man to be held accountable for what he’d done. With that decision, Linae felt that the courts did an injustice to her family. The other eleven members of the jury realized that a hung jury would mean that the family would be subjected to a second trial & came to a compromise on the lesser offense. With this sentencing, the death penalty was no longer an option.
During the sentencing, the judge addressed him by saying, “First & foremost, I’m struck by the senselessness & brutality of this crime. In a sense, we’re all victims. Decent, law-abiding citizens must walk our streets in fear & now are fearful within the walls of their own homes.” The judge recommended he spend the rest of his life behind bars & gave the maximum terms under Utah law for each of nine felonies & ordered that they be served consecutively. Because of this, he will spend a minimum of 62 years in prison. The earliest he can be released from prison is 2053 & Judge Noel said he would recommend that Deli never be paroled.
Both Tricia & Linea testified at their trials & despite their young ages & the trauma they had suffered, they were phenomenal witnesses. As they described the horrors in what they lived through that day, they were sure about the things they had seen & spoke with conviction in a detailed & unemotional way.
Linea did resent that as a victim, she was required to handle the gun that was used to murder both her mother & grandmother during her testimony. When Rolf Tiede came in to testify, Trish remembers seeing the shocked look on Deli’s face & it was clear that he was unaware that her father survived. At that point, Trish felt like they had won.
In 2001, Deli wrote a letter to the victims’ family & said that he would have pleaded guilty to the crimes, but his lawyer wouldn’t allow him to do so. He explained that it was only his plan to burglarize the cabin & he never had any intention of hurting anyone. He wrote, “I wanted to steal money, not a life. I didn’t either.” He claims that Taylor took the .44 caliber gun from Deli’s holster & shot the victims, “I could only accept what happend & get on with it.”
It took Linea over nine years to respond to the letter & by that point, she had probably read it about 30 times. She has since chosen to forgive him in order to regain her freedom & acknowledges that forgiving does not mean forgetting.
The family plans to petition the Board of Pardons to prevent Deli from ever being set free. They feel that despite the years that go by, even if he is released as a 70-year-old man, that he is a danger & at risk for killing again.
Throughout the years, Taylor had repeatedly appealed his sentence. During his third trip to the Utah Supreme Court, his current attorney claimed that the autopsies prove that he is “factually innocent” even though he admitted to firing the first shots. He claims that the fatal wounds came from Deli’s gun & that Linea has been inconsistent with her accounts. The state disputes this & he remains on death row. Linae & Trish vow that they will be there on the day he is executed.
After Linea’s first marriage ended in divorce, she married her childhood sweetheart & said that her husband Nathan changed her. She feels that because he opened his heart to her, it gave her the freedom to do the same. The couple now has a blended family with nine children between them.
Trisha is a divorced mother of two children & she says that when she looks into her children’s eyes, she sees her mother & father. She loves her life & feels like that horrible day from 1990 does not define her, but has helped to make her who she is today.
After the fire, Rolf worked to rebuild the cabin & according to Trisha & Linea, he made it even better than it was before. Rolf reminded his daughter that lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same location & assured them that they were safe. They still visit the cabin with family & friends & despite the fact that Taylor & Deli took their mother & grandmother away, they will never take away the other things they still love & enjoy. The girls describe the cabin as magical & healing.
Rolf lived a very full & happy life, enjoying his girls & grandchildren & when he was diagnosed with cancer, the whole family came together. The girls describe the last six to eight weeks of their father’s life as absolutely incredible. In 2008, he passed away with his family by his side.
References:
- CBS News: The Tiede Case – Two killers, two outcomes. Justice served?
- The Desert News: 2 defendants in Coalville slayings will be tried together, judge rules
- Desert News: Judge gives Deli maximum sentence, urges against parole
- CBS News: Crime scene photos: Deadly home invasion
- Medium: The Christmas cabin murders
- CBS News: Sisters survive deadly attack at Utah cabin
