Tongan man gets 15-years prison for cruel slaying in Utah [1]
Monday, January 20, 2020 - 19:45
Taniela Lopiseni Salakielu (23) of Nevada, was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment by the U.S. District Court in Utah for the beating death of a father of four children, Rand Hatch (50), in the Utah town of Bountiful in late 2018.
Hatch was discovered dead and unrecognizable in his home on 19 August 2018, with large fractures to the skull, face and ribs. A jail identification card was found in the home belonging to Salakielu, who had been recently incarcerated in relation to domestic violence. According to the court, Salakielu and the victim knew each other.
A female witness – reportedly a girlfriend of Salakielu – said that Salakielu had snuck into the house through a window before letting her in through the front door of the house. She said that a verbal altercation occurred before Salakielu struck the victim with a stick. The pair then left in a vehicle belonging to the victim.
Despite the horrific details of the crime, Salakielu avoided a murder conviction after a plea agreement reduced the charge to manslaughter. The plea deal is believed have arisen because of an unreliable witness and because Police could not find a murder weapon believed to have been used by Salakieulu. Two counts of burglary and theft were also dropped.
A gofundme page [2] has been setup to help support the Hatch family.