Police arrest man sought in deaths in Utah, Colorado
SALT LAKE CITY — A man sought in a carjacking that took the life of a University of Utah student and the death of a Colorado man was arrested Tuesday after he turned himself in at a Salt Lake City library, police said.
Austin Boutain, 24, dodged a manhunt in the rugged foothills near campus for nearly 15 hours before his arrest in the death of ChenWei Guo.
Guo, a 23-year-old student from China, was shot to death Monday evening during an attempted carjacking and found dead in his car in Red Butte Canyon on the edge of campus.
In addition, police in Golden, Colo., have said they want to question Boutain about the killing of a 63-year-old man whose truck had been driven by Boutain in Utah. The man’s body was found Tuesday in his trailer in Colorado.
Kathleen E. Boutain, the suspect’s wife, also is a person of interest in the Colorado case. She was in custody in Utah on unrelated drug and theft charges.
Salt Lake City Police Detective Greg Wilking said Austin Boutain apparently slipped a police containment line in a nearby canyon after Guo was killed.
Guo, one of thousands of international students at the University of Utah, was a freshman from Beijing who came to the U.S. in 2012 and dreamed of owning his own consulting company. He was studying pre-computer science.
He was a member of the Mormon church, having served as a missionary in Provo.
Rachel Tam, a 24-year-old friend of Guo, said he would speak in a moving and powerful way about his faith. He also loved to dance and wowed his friends on the dance floor with hip hop moves at a church event in August.
“He was really talented,” she said. Lori McDonald, dean of students, described him as “extremely outgoing, charming, creative, smart.”