A Utah jury has rejected a son’s claims of self-defense, finding 48-year-old Jeremy Ross Pulver guilty of murder Wednesday in the fatal hatchet attack on his elderly father.
Jurors in Third District Court deliberated for about four hours before convicting Pulver on all counts, including first-degree murder, obstruction of justice, weapons charges, and drug possession.
According to KSL, Prosecutors said Pulver attacked his father, 72-year-old John Pulver, on April 26, 2024, inside a West Valley City home. The victim died from blunt force trauma after being hit repeatedly with a hatchet, which police later recovered from the younger Pulver’s van. Evidence also showed attempts to strangle and suffocate the victim with an electric cord and a plastic bag.
On the witness stand, Jeremy Pulver claimed he was trying to protect himself during a confrontation in a dark room.
“I feel horrible. I feel devastated. I feel a tremendous amount of, pain and uh, regret that I even got there,” Pulver testified. “I also felt like, wow, I can’t believe this happened.”
Deputy Salt Lake County Attorney John Ham argued Pulver was the aggressor, noting he was under the influence of methamphetamine and had given shifting accounts of the incident across multiple police interviews and jail calls.
Defense attorney Melinda Dee countered that the victim had dangerous levels of meth in his system and that her client reacted out of fear of a weapon.
“Jeremy did act in self-defense; the state has not disproved that,” Dee argued to the jury.
Pulver faces sentencing on Nov. 2.
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