Outrageous complaint of wealthy Utah mom ‘who murdered husband after he learned of her affair’
A wealthy Utah mother accused of killing her husband after revealing her affair complains that the legal system is ruining her life.
Jennifer Gledhill, 41, stood next to her lawyer Friday as he angrily accused a judge of trying to “set fire to everything she loves” by refusing to let her contact her three children.
“My client has already lost her freedom at this point,” Gledhill’s attorney said.
“It feels like the state, and the city, the police department that investigated this, are trying to burn everything my client loves.”
Jennifer Gledhill, 41, is accused of fatally shooting her husband Matthew Johnson in their $1 million home. She has now complained about the justice system “blowing up her life” by refusing to contact the children whose fathers she allegedly killed.
Gledhill allegedly shot husband Matthew Johnson in their $1 million home in Cottonwood Heights in September after a night of whiskey sex.
She is said to have buried Johnson in a shallow grave after asking her parents to help her clean up the scene, while police have yet to discover his body.
Gledhill says she should be allowed to contact her descendants because they are not victims in the cast, Fox13 reported.
The alleged murderer – who stared petrified during Friday’s hearing – argued that a previous restraining order was “wrongly placed and granted.”
Judge Adam Mow agreed and revoked it, but immediately imposed another order that still prohibits Gledhill from contacting her children, who are 11, 7 and 5.
Jennifer Gledhill has yet to confess to killing her husband Matthew Johnson
Thomas Gledhill, 71, and Rosalie Christianson Gledhill, 67, have both been arrested for claiming they helped their daughter cover up her husband’s murder
Mow said he may change the order as the case progresses.
Last week, police revealed witnesses saw Gledhill’s parents Thomas and Rosalie Gledhill cleaning her house for five hours after the alleged murder, with her mother suspected of buying her daughter a new mattress.
Detectives believe Johnson was killed on the old mattress, which then disappeared and has not been found. Bloodstains were reportedly found under Gledhill’s bed when a search warrant was executed on September 28.
Thomas and Rosalie cared for Gledhill and Johnson’s children, but social services had yet to say where the young people are now staying.
Police allege Gledhill shot her National Guard husband, Matthew Johnson, in the head last month while he slept in their spacious Cottonwood home.
Johnson was reported missing on September 23, with Gledhill arrested after her unnamed lover told police she had told him about her husband’s murder.
Gledhill was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail last week on murder and obstruction of justice charges after her husband disappeared
In a police interview after her arrest on October 3, Gledhill claimed she separated from Johnson to talk to him and drink liquor on the evening of September 20.
Gledhill said they had intercourse that evening, and “informed (the officer) that due to the intoxication from the whiskey, she had difficulty remembering the events that occurred after she and Matthew had sex,” according to the search warrant.
Gledhill said Johnson “became upset” during their evening together but could not remember why.
But she gave conflicting excuses for the bruises on her body, it is claimed.
Gledhill, 41, has reportedly admitted to shooting her husband in the head last month while he slept in their $1 million home in Cottonwood Heights
Gledhill told police Johnson struck her “several times” with a closed fist, leaving bruises on her arms, hands, face and legs.
Her secret lover – whose name has not been released – says Jennifer told him she got the bruises “from moving Matthew’s body and cleaning up the mess in the house.”
The man contacted police after Gledhill allegedly confessed to the murder, leading to her arrest.
When asked by an officer why she had not reported her husband’s alleged domestic excuse, Gledhill claimed to have made “a deal” with him.
She is said to have had a “long history of calling the police on Matthew for non-criminal altercations.”
Matthew Johnson was reportedly shot in the head while he slept. His wife confessed to a friend that she had dumped his body in a shallow grave
Gledhill told police they had arranged for him to return to work at Camp Williams State Military Reservation the night after they had sex.
The alleged murderer says the first she knew of Johnson’s disappearance was a message from his co-workers saying he had missed work.
But her lover offered an alternative version of events.
He claims Gledhill told him she shot Johnson in the head while he slept.
She then allegedly placed his body in a storage container in the attic before sliding it down the stairs into the back of her minivan.
Gledhill allegedly broke Johnson’s phone and drove his truck to another part of their property before driving his body north and burning him in a shallow grave.