Police discovered grim footage at a scene of horrors as two robbers unleashed hell on a family who had just arrived for their Christmas getaway
A family’s festive getaway descended into complete horror when two intruders did the unthinkable.
Kaye and Rolf Tiede drove their two daughters – Linae, 20, and Tricia, 16 – and Kaye’s mother, Beth Potts, to a picture-perfect cabin stay in the mountains just three days before Christmas Day.
The remote property was nestled in the woods and covered in a thick blanket of glistening snow, a scene straight out of a movie. The family were completely unaware that two men had already broken into the holiday home earlier that day – and were waiting to pounce.
Edward Steven Deli and Von Lester Taylor had just been freed from prison for robbery and theft. Immediately after their release, the pair hiked up in the mountains, armed with guns and a sinister determination to steal money, food and gifts, Deseret News reports.
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When Kaye, her mum and two daughters walked into the cabin in Utah, the two men held them at gunpoint, moving them into a bedroom and tying them up.
“My mum was saying to ’em, ‘What is it you want? Why are you here? I’ll give you anything,'” Kaye’s other daughter Tricia told 48 Hours. “Seconds after she had said that, gunfire started imploding, exploding, explosion. From everywhere I saw my mum go down.
“I turned at that point. And looked over my shoulder to my Grams. And saw her get shot in the head. And blood spray everywhere… I heard her gasp for some breath.”
By the time Rolf and Tricia got home, Kaye and her Beth were already dead. Twisted killer Taylor then shot Rolf in the face, but he miraculously survived because the weapon was loaded with birdshot.
Harrowingly, Rolf had to play dead as his family was wiped out around him – it was the only chance of getting out alive. The merciless burglars then doused him and the cabin with petrol and set the building alight, PEOPLE reports.
Somehow the injured father managed to crawl out from the burning property, drive a snowmobile and flee to get help in the snow-encased mountains.
But his daughters were still trapped in the home, and Taylor and Deli kidnapped them, forcing them at gunpoint to load the family’s remaining snowmobiles. Both siblings had to drive with one of their captors riding closely behind.
“There was a sense of urgency to get out of there,” Tricia explained. “They began telling us we got to hurry and load the snowmobiles and get out of here.”
“My sister and I drove these awful men on the snowmobiles out of the cabin,” Linae added. “I drove one man behind me and my sister drove the other man behind her.”
For a split second, Tricia contemplated wrecking the vehicle to escape, but she couldn’t bear to leave her sister behind.
As the captive sisters continued to drive away, they passed uncle Randy Zorn on the icy trail. “I seen the snowmobiles come up the trail, and I go, ‘Look, there are my nieces!’ But they had boyfriends on the back or something.
“I didn’t know what was going on. They just drove by me, and I go, hmm, that’s weird. That’s not my nieces. They don’t do that to me,” he told 48 Hours.
The sisters fought the desperate urge to cry for help; too afraid that their kidnappers would hurt their uncle if they ran to the man they knew.
The killers eventually ditched the snowmobiles and hauled the siblings into the family car as they tried to outrun the police.
Rolf, severely injured and traumatised, eventually arrived at Zorn’s cabin. “His face is just huge and full of blood and just – just big. Eye swollen shut. Bloodcicles – ’cause it was cold…he was in really bad shape,” the uncle said. “And he says, ‘I’ve been shot. My wife has been killed and my daughters have been kidnapped.'”
Police managed to track the kidnappers down in a stolen car and after gunfire and a chase, they rescued the siblings who survived the ordeal.
When investigators finally made it to the burned holiday cabin, they found something disturbing. “When I watched the videotape – that had been taken from the crime scene… I expected to see pictures of family talking, playing games, doing what family folks do.
“But as it turns out, there were the two suspects. They were opening the family’s Christmas presents,” lead investigator Joe Offert revealed.
Tricia recalled seeing Deli’s face the moment he realised her father was alive. “It was very apparent to me that he did not know my father had survived,” she told the court. “And the look on his face was just priceless, like he had been defeated. My dad survived. We won.”
Evil Taylor pleaded guilty to two counts of capital murder and was sentenced to death. His accomplice Deli, who insisted he did not fire the fatal shots, was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
Taylor repeatedly appealed his conviction and sentence but they have been upheld. He remains on death row in Salt Lake City while Deli is serving life without the possibility of parole in Utah.
The remaining members of the tragic family got the ultimate revenge on the killers. “After the cabin had burned…we went and rebuilt it and made it even better than it was before,” Linae told 48 Hours.
“I can remember my dad. He would say this to me – quite often. He would say, ‘Linae, I know lightning strikes.’ He says, ‘But lightning never strikes twice in the same location.’
“And I would find great peace in that… Sometimes – if I ever would have fear… I would just hear my dad say, ‘Linae…You’re gonna be safe.'”
