December trial set for Cottonwood Heights woman charged with killing her husband

Cottonwood Heights police officers escort Jennifer Gledhill into a police car on Oct. 2, 2024. She will face trial in December on charges of shooting and killing her husband.

Cottonwood Heights police officers escort Jennifer Gledhill into a police car on Oct. 2, 2024. She will face trial in December on charges of shooting and killing her husband. (Ed Collins, KSL-TV)


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KEY TAKEAWAYS
  • A jury trial for Jennifer Gledhill, charged with killing her estranged husband, was scheduled Friday for mid-December.
  • Gledhill has pleaded not guilty to multiple charges, including murder, obstruction of justice, and desecration of a body.
  • Matthew Johnson was shot in his sleep; his body has not been found.

SALT LAKE CITY — A judge on Friday set a December trial date for a Cottonwood Heights woman charged with killing her estranged husband as he slept.

Jennifer Gledhill, 42, is charged with killing Matthew Johnson, 51, a member of a Special Operations Unit in the U.S. military, from whom she had filed for divorce in July 2024. Johnson's body has never been found.

A man whom the woman was having an affair with contacted police after Gledhill told him she had shot and killed her husband in his sleep, charging documents state.

She is charged with murder, a first-degree felony; five counts of obstruction of justice and drug possession with intent to distribute, second-degree felonies; plus abuse or desecration of a dead body and witness tampering, third-degree felonies.

Gledhill has pleaded not guilty to the charges. The trial will last eight days, beginning on Dec. 8 and going through Dec. 17.

Third District Judge Adam Mow set a deadline for any pretrial motions to be filed at the beginning of August and set a pretrial conference for Nov. 6, saying that hearing would be a final opportunity for Gledhill to change her plea.

Gledhill's attorney, Jeremy Deus, said a plea offer has been extended to his client, but he did not say whether Gledhill is considering it.

The Utah National Guard first contacted police on Sept. 25 to report Johnson had not returned to work. Three days later, Gledhill reported him missing. While serving a warrant, detectives reported finding areas in the marital home that had recently been cleaned with bleach and some reddish-brown spots on the walls, bed frame and blinds.

In a recent hearing where Mow denied Gledhill's request to be released on bail, new evidence was introduced — including blood found in the couple's bedroom and in a car rooftop storage container, later located in Davis County, testing positive for Johnson's DNA.

Deputy Salt Lake County attorney Emily Paulos said prosecutors believe the storage container was moved during a storm from where it had been concealed.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

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Emily Ashcraft is a reporter for KSL.com. She covers issues in state courts, health and religion. In her spare time, Emily enjoys crafting, cycling and raising chickens.
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