By Geoff Liesik
Deseret Morning News
DRAPER, Utah — Charles Pete Ulibarri was 16 years old when he stood over David Young — already wounded after being shot three times — and fired a rifle bullet into the 43-year-old’s lower abdomen, nicking his heart.
“I just freaked out. I was young, amped up,” Ulibarri said Tuesday during his second parole hearing since being sentenced to prison in 1991 for capital murder.
“He was already down. I really don’t know why I even shot him,” the now-35-year-old Ulibarri said.
Ulibarri, along with Young’s stepson, Joseph Russell Hill, had gone to the victim’s Ogden home on April 22, 1991, to retrieve Hill’s things. But then they found Young’s gun collection, Ulibarri said, and began firing some of the weapons inside the house and stealing things.
“It kinda turned into a robbery,” Ulibarri told Utah Board of Pardons and Parole member Clark Harms.
He said Hill told him to hide when Young walked in unexpectedly. There was some shouting, Ulibarri said, and then Hill shot Young three times. Young fell, and Ulibarri stepped from his hiding place, shooting the man once. Hill, then 18, fired a final shot into the back of Young’s head before the teens fled.
Young’s body was found four days later, after co-workers became concerned when he missed his shift without calling in.
“I didn’t want to be caught, but I was glad I was,” said Ulibarri, who met Hill when they lived in the same foster home.
“I knew we weren’t going to get away with it,” he added.
Ulibarri was certified to stand trial as an adult in the slaying. He pleaded guilty in September 1991 to capital murder — one of the youngest people in Utah to do so at the time — and was sentenced to serve life in prison with the possibility of parole. Hill pleaded guilty to capital murder and other charges three months later and received an identical sentence. His next parole hearing is scheduled for 2011.
Under questioning from Harms, Ulibarri said his mother was a drug addict. His childhood and teen years were spent sleeping on the couches of friends and family members, he said, and his longest stint in one place before coming to prison was when he lived for a year with his aunt.
But Ulibarri asked for no sympathy for his difficult upbringing.
“I don’t blame my childhood,” he said. “Our choices are our own, and we have to own them.”
Ulibarri said he spent his first eight years in prison “with a chip on my shoulder,” fighting everyone and everything. He eventually realized the things he was missing in his life, though, and said he began working to better himself. He earned his GED, went on to complete a college degree and has held various prison jobs to learn trade skills.
“Everything I do now is an homage to (Young), so two lives aren’t wasted,” Ulibarri said.
Harms asked Ulibarri what, if anything, he would say to Young’s children about his decision to end their father’s life.
“Sorry sounds so hollow,” Ulibarri said, breaking down into sobs. “I wouldn’t be able to say it enough, and not just because I’m here. It was a horrible thing I did, and I am sorry for their loss.”
The parole board will review Ulibarri’s file and announce its decision in about one month. Harms told Ulibarri he appreciated the changes he has made during his time behind bars, adding that whatever decision the board reaches, it won’t discount those changes.
But Harms also warned Ulibarri that only one-quarter of the people convicted of capital murder in Utah are granted the privilege of parole, and the majority serve at least 28 years before being released.
“I am convinced that you are a different person than you were 18 years ago,” Harms said. “What I don’t know is whether or not that lessens your risk to the public in our eyes, given the crime that you committed, and sometimes, perhaps not in this case, but sometimes the appropriate punishment for an aggravated homicide is life in prison.”
Copyright 2009 The Deseret News Publishing Co.