following the media and the little bit the police said about the sierra newbold case as much as i could, i logged onto facebook and predicted on july 5 that we should expect to hear a big announcement late in the afternoon on friday, the next day.
instead, early next morning, the cops issued this rather generic, basic statement:
i really was thinking something bigger was about to break but all that dropped was that notice, and nothing else. it didn’t seem right given what i knew about the case.
the police opted to wait till the following tuesday to announce the break in the case, and the arrest.
and on that following tuesday, terry lee black was charged with the little girl’s murder. his mugshot is below.
how was caught is actually kind of goofy. he was in jail since june 29th, and from the day of that arrest, the chief investigator of the sierra newbold case knew he was the guy. i think the statement released that friday morning was put out just to placate the public while they shored up their case against black, who was already in custody.
check this out: terry lee black, on june 29th, goes to the deseret industries thrift store at 7166 south redwood road. this is around the corner from sierra’s house. he steals a jeep cherokee and decides to drive to the wells fargo bank that is 8 blocks south of the store, to rob the bank. at the bank, while he’s inside trying to rob it, a manager from the thrift store happens to be making a deposit. she recognizes her employee’s stolen truck. when she sees black approach the vehicle she shoos him off and takes his picture with a cell phone. she calls the police and black is arrested for the vehicle crime.
the detective who gets the call is james bigelow, who is the lead investigator on the sierra newbold murder, too. and he has a hunch about terry lee black almost immediately.
a lot has been made in the local mormon media because west jordan police chief doug diamond said publicly that he believed ‘divine intervention’ helped solve the case. this really feels cheap and silly to me. it seems to minimize both the stupidity of this monster terry lee black and the good police work of the detectives involved.
terry lee black lived in these apartments that are on the canal she sierra newbold was found in. i will take a pic of them and post it below when i drive by them tomorrow. they, like the crime scene itself, are less than 100 yards from my house.
terry lee black has been charged with capital murder. the case broke just when i expected it to but not as i expected it to.
i harp a lot in life on how i am not so much interested in what people believe, but why. and why they seemingly need to believe what they believe. all belief serves a purpose in the individual. it is almost all self serving.
i needed to think it was the family somehow, that it was a domestic situation that got sadly out of control. i didn’t want to believe that some egregious bastard could live 100 yards from me and sexually assault, strangle and ultimately drown a six year old kid. i didn’t want to think that could be the case. it turns out that that’s exactly and simply what it was.
i still don’t know what to say about all that. i’m mostly only posting this as an informational update, since i posted about the crime when it happened.
end of transmission.
