Our card this week is Valaine Briggs, the Ace of Spades from Utah.
When 19-year-old Valaine left her Salt Lake City apartment and walked to class one spring morning in 1977, her carefully planned future was full of promise. And though she was in a time of transition and had recently ended an engagement, Valaine knew even this temporary disappointment just brought her closer to the life she dreamed of…a life full of family and rooted in faith…a life her ex-fiancé couldn’t give her.
What Valaine didn’t know that morning…what she couldn’t have known…was that the postcard-perfect future she envisioned for herself would be stolen from her in the cruelest of ways.
Courtesy of Unified Police Department of Greater Salt Lake
Episode Info
If you know anything about the murder of Valaine Briggs in Salt Lake City, Utah in May of 1977, please call Unified Police Detective Ben Pender at 385-468-9816.
To apply for the Cold Case Playing Cards grant through Season of Justice, visit www.seasonofjustice.org.
Undated photo of Valaine Briggs. Courtesy: Unified Police Department of Greater Salt Lake
Undated photo of Valaine Briggs. Courtesy: Unified Police Department of Greater Salt Lake
Undated photo of Valaine Briggs. Courtesy: Unified Police Department of Greater Salt Lake
Photo of Lamb’s Canyon in 2023. By: audiochuck staff
Additional photo of Lamb’s Canyon in 2023. By: audiochuck staff
Photo of Valaine’s apartment building in 2023. By: audiochuck staff
Photo of LDS Business College, now known as Ensign College, in 2023. By: audiochuck staff
Photo of the black belt and women’s stockings Valaine was bound with. Courtesy: Unified Police Department of Greater Salt Lake
Additional photo of the black belt and women’s stockings Valaine was bound with. Courtesy: Unified Police Department of Greater Salt Lake
Photo of Unified PD Detective Ben Pender reviewing case files. By: audiochuck staff
Episode Source Material
- The Daily Herald (Provo, UT): Police Identify Body of Woman.
- The Salt Lake Tribune (Salt Lake City, UT): Canyon Victim Strangled, Autopsy Reveals.
- The Montana Standard (Butte, MT): Dillon girl, 18, murdered.
- The Herald Journal (Logan, UT): Murder victim identified.
- The Deseret News (Salt Lake City, UT): Officers pursue several leads in coed’s death.
- The Daily Herald (Provo, UT): Police Press Probe Into Coed’s Death.
- The Salt Lake Tribune (Salt Lake City, UT): No New Leads In Slaying.
- The Ogden Standard-Examiner (Ogden, UT): Salt Lake Coed: Clues Sifted in Death.
- The Ogden Standard-Examiner (Ogden, UT): Man Quizzed, Released In Coed Slaying.
- The Deseret News (Salt Lake City, UT): Deputies quiz man in S.L. coed slaying.
- The Salt Lake Tribune (Salt Lake City, UT): Law Officers Awaiting Slay Tests.
- The Montana Standard (Butte, MT): False ID card initiates speedy action in Dillon.
- The Daily Herald (Provo, UT): Utah Detectives Go to Louisiana To Look at Admitted Murderer.
- The Daily Spectrum (Saint George, UT): Murderers passed through Utah.
- The Daily Spectrum (Saint George, UT): SL Sheriff wants to jog killer’s memory.
- Utah Department of Public Safety Bureau of Criminal Identification (Taylorsville, UT): Valaine Briggs.