Man arrested after violent West Valley hatchet killing, police say

WEST VALLEY CITY — Police say they arrested a man Friday in the investigation of a violent murder in West Valley City.

Jeremy Ross Pulver, 46, was booked into Salt Lake County jail after dispatchers were alerted to the death of Pulver’s father, John Pulver, according to a booking affidavit. West Valley Police and first responders found the dead man, and spoke to the initial witness who made the call and said she saw Pulver as he was fleeing the scene.

Pulver told the witness that he beat his father to death “and filled his mouth with baking soda to ensure he was dead after,” a police affidavit said.

A short time later, investigators say they located and apprehended Pulver, taking him to the West Valley police department for an interview where, according to the booking report, he admitted to killing his father.

‘Desire to die’

Pulver, in the interview, told police he had been staying with his father since Wednesday, and his father expressed a desire to die “because of his elderly condition,” the affidavit says.

Jeremy Pulver “worked up the confidence to kill” his father, according to the affidavit, and went the bedroom where John Pulver was sleeping early Friday to kill him. Pulver told police he tried to smother his father with a rag, and suffocate him with a plastic bag, but the man “fought back harder than (Pulver) ever would’ve expected,” according to the arrest report.

Finally, Pulver allegedly grabbed a hatchet and bashed his father on the head multiple times until he stopped fighting, before he filled the man’s mouth with baking soda, “as he learned this was a good method to ensure someone was dead,” the affidavit says. Police noted that the crime scene “was consistent with statements made by (Pulver),” and that he told investigators where the alleged murder weapons were.

According to the affidavit, the Clearfield police are currently looking into an incident from Thursday, when Pulver “pointed a firearm at another member of the public” during an argument.