Former S.L. District Attorney David Yocom, who prosecuted Ted Bundy, Mark Hofmann, has died

Retired Salt Lake County District Attorney David E. Yocom has died. He was in his mid-80s.

Yocom and his office prosecuted some of the most high-profile defendants in Utah history such as serial killer Ted Bundy, counterfeiter, forger and murderer Mark Hofmann and murderous polygamist Ervil LeBaron.

The Bundy case attracted international attention, Yocom said in a 2006 interview prior to his retirement.

“It was the first time he’d gone on trial for anything,” he said.

Bundy was not prosecuted for murder in Utah but was charged with kidnapping Carol DaRonch from the Fashion Place Mall parking lot after posing as a police officer to lure her into his car in the mid-1970s. Despite having one wrist trapped in Bundy’s handcuffs, DaRonch managed to fling herself out of his moving car and get away.

“Our case was solid enough to file and go to trial on,” Yocom said in the 2006 interview. The jury returned the first several of what would be many felony convictions for Bundy, who was executed in Florida in 1989 after a murderous rampage in several states.

The Utah victory was short-lived, however. Bundy soon after escaped from a Colorado jail where he was awaiting a murder trial and, tragically, managed to elude police long enough to kill several more people before being convicted of murder and executed 14 years after his Utah conviction.

Yocom also worked in private practice during his long legal career.

He defended serial killer and white supremacist Joseph Paul Franklin, who shot and killed two Black men who were jogging with white women near Liberty Park in 1980.

Franklin had previous federal charges of violating the civil rights of the two Black men he killed but he was also charged with state charges, which carried the death penalty.

“It was pretty difficult,” Yocom said in the 2006 Deseret News interview. “The whole objective of this was to enforce the death penalty.”

Franklin was found guilty of two counts of aggravated murder but the jury could not agree during the penalty phase, so he was sentenced to two more life sentences.

Salt Lake County’s current District Attorney Sim Gill said in a statement that it was an honor to work with Yocom.

“He not only inspired me as a young prosecutor but served as an example and mentor for me and hundreds of Salt Lake County deputy district attorneys over his long tenure in office,” he said.

“David was an advocate for bringing the district attorney’s office closer to the courts to help the two entities work together more efficiently, a vision that I was honored to help see through to its completion. David spoke his mind, never shied away from tough cases and made a positive difference in this community,” Gill said.

The district attorney’s office experienced tremendous growth during Yocom’s service. In the late 1960s, there were seven deputy district attorneys and support staff. By his retirement, the office has a staff of more than 200 people, including 89 lawyers, investigators, paralegals and victim counselors.

In 2004, Yocom’s office hired a special prosecutor to prosecute then-Salt Lake County Mayor Nancy Workman or second- and third-degree felony counts of allegedly misusing $17,000 in county money when she secretly hired a pair of employees who worked directly for her daughter Aisza, the financial manager at the Boys and Girls Club.

Workman, the county’s first mayor, was acquitted in February 2005, after more than seven months of investigation. Workman was forced to go on administrative leave as mayor during the ordeal. She withdrew from her reelection bid to fight the charges and survived a six-day trial in which a jury declared her not guilty.

At the time, Yocom was criticized for abusing his authority, but in the 2006 interview upon his retirement, he expressed no regrets about any cases his office had filed or tried.

Yocom’s law career spanned from the 1960s until the early 2000s. Voters first elected him Salt Lake County District Attorney in 1986. He was reelected in 1990 and lost his reelection in 1994. He returned to serve two additional terms as district attorney from 1998-2006.

He was a 1965 graduate of the University of Utah College of Law.

Yocom is survived by his wife, Linda, four sons, eight grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.