A Utah man, who had been on death row for nearly four decades and whose execution was recently halted due to his deteriorating mental health, has passed away from what authorities believe to be natural causes. This has been confirmed by the state’s Department of Corrections.
Ralph Leroy Menzies, aged 67, died on Wednesday. Just earlier this year, the Utah Supreme Court had stayed his September 5 execution after his lawyers contended that his dementia had progressed to the extent that it rendered him incompetent. A hearing to reassess his mental capacity had been scheduled for the following month.
Menzies was originally sentenced to death by firing squad in 1988, following his conviction for the kidnapping and murder of 26-year-old Maurine Hunsaker, a mother of three, near Salt Lake City back in 1986.
Accompanying the news of Menzies’ death was a sense of relief from the victim’s family. Jim Hunsaker, the husband of the late Maurine, expressed feeling as though a significant burden had been lifted upon hearing of Menzies’ passing.
Ralph Menzies had been present at his commutation hearing at the Utah State Correctional Facility in Salt Lake City on August 15, 2025, where discussions about his mental fitness and execution had taken place.
The victim’s husband, Jim Hunsaker, said he had a “happy feeling” and like a huge weight had been lifted off him when he learned of Menzies’ death.
“I think a lot of it is going to be just healing now,” he told The Associated Press. “I don’t think there was a day that I didn’t think about it.”
He expressed frustration about how the state’s judicial system handled Menzies’ case, saying his family experienced “one disappointment after another” for decades.
“It seems like everything went his way,” he said.
Menzies is one of several U.S. prisoners who have died of natural causes while on death row.
More than half of all U.S. prisoners sentenced to death spend more than 18 years awaiting execution, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
The state Supreme Court said over the summer that the progression of Menzies’ disease raised a significant concern about his fitness to be executed. A state medical professional agreed in a mental competency report published this month that Menzies lacked a rational understanding of why he was facing execution.
Ralph Leroy Menzies appears in Third District Court for a competency hearing in West Jordan, Utah, Nov 18, 2024. (AP)
Those findings came after a state judge ruled he was competent enough to be executed, saying in June that Menzies “consistently and rationally understands” what is happening and why he is facing execution despite his recent cognitive decline, and that his execution would not violate the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishments.
Utah Attorney General Derek Brown said he hopes the victim’s family will finally have some closure and peace after Menzies’ death.
“For decades, the state of Utah has pursued justice on her behalf. The path has been long and filled with pain, far more than any victim’s family should ever have to endure,” Brown said.
Menzies abducted Hunsaker from a convenience store where she worked on Feb. 23, 1986, just days after he was released on bail for an unrelated crime. She later called her husband to tell him she had been robbed and kidnapped, but that her abductor planned to release her.
Days later, a hiker found her body at a picnic area about 16 miles away in Big Cottonwood Canyon. She was strangled and had her throat cut.
When he was later jailed on unrelated matters, Menzies had Hunsaker’s wallet and several other items that belonged to her. Police also said Hunsaker’s thumbprint was found in a car that Menzies was driving, and her purse was discovered in his apartment.
A chair sits in the execution chamber at the Utah State Prison June 18, 2010. (Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP, Pool, File)
Menzies was convicted of first-degree murder and other crimes.
“We’re grateful that Ralph passed naturally and maintained his spiritedness and dignity until the end,” Menzies’ legal team said in a statement.
Menzies selected the firing squad as his method of execution and would have become only the seventh U.S. prisoner executed by firing squad since the U.S. reinstated the death penalty in 1977 — three in Utah, with the last one in the state carried out in 2010, and three in South Carolina this year.
Utah’s last execution of any method was carried out by lethal injection over a year ago.
