On a quiet 2025 March morning in Saratoga Springs, Utah, a teenage girl walked into a horrific scene. Her mother, Jessica Lyman (44) and her brother Eli Painter (8) had been shot and were found in Jessica’s bedroom.
As investigators peeled back the layers of the case, unsettling clues emerged—surveillance footage of a masked figure, cryptic handwritten notes, and a trail of unanswered questions that have kept the double murder shrouded in mystery. More than a year later, with no arrests and new evidence still surfacing, the Saratoga Springs double murder remains one of Utah’s most haunting and perplexing unsolved cases.
We will start with some history into those involved in the case.
Jessica was born on March 26, 1981, in Provo, Utah, to Byron James Orton and Marsha Clayton Orton. According to her obituary, Jessica’s life was defined by her deep love for her family, her unwavering dedication to her career, and her generous spirit.
Jessica had three children – two teenagers and Eli, the second victim in this murder. The names of the surviving teens are published online but we are not going to name them in this episode. We will refer to the teenage daughter as A and the teenage son as N.
Professionally, Jessica worked in roles such as a human resources professional, account manager, and project manager. She was known for her exceptional work ethic, intelligence, and ability to rise quickly through the ranks.
More than anything, Jessica treasured creating special moments with her children. Whether attending a Sabrina Carpenter concert with her daughter, surprising her teenage son with a flying lesson for his 15th birthday, or taking Eli to a trampoline park, she always found ways to bring adventure and joy into their lives.
Eli was born on February 14, 2017 in Orem, Utah to Jason Everett Painter and Jessica.
He had a deep love for Sonic the Hedgehog and could spend hours playing any Sonic game, as well as Minecraft and Mario Party. Recently, he had discovered a new favorite game, pickleball, which was the last thing he played with his family on Tuesday evening before he passed.
Eli’s world was full of adventure. He adored Spider-Man, basketball, soccer, and riding his bike. He was just beginning to learn how to skateboard and was always ready for his next challenge. He loved going on walks in nature, where his boundless curiosity shined as he explored the world around him. He had a remarkable talent for art, spending hours creating drawings that captured his vivid imagination. Eli also had a budding passion for cooking, helping Jessica make dinner from the special cookbook she gave him for his birthday. He never missed an opportunity to visit the jump park, where he could run, climb, and bounce.
On March 28, 2025, A returned to the family home in Saratoga Springs. She went into her mother’s bedroom and found both Jessica and Eli. Both had suffered gunshot wounds.
Eli had suffered two gunshots to the head, inflicted ‘with a small caliber round. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Jessica was airlifted to hospital in a critical condition. Police cordoned off the home and began a homicide investigation.
Jessica remained in the hospital for a few days, before she passed away on March 31, 2025.
Authorities have remained tight lipped about the case but we have learned a fair amount of information from court documents.
According to a warrant that was filed in April 2025, Jessica’s “shorts or pants” were found “down around her knees” when she was found.
The warrant also revealed that two .22-caliber shell casings were found at the murder scene.
According to Fox, a Saratoga Springs Police detective submitted the warrant to Apple Inc., requesting data from an iCloud account belonging to a family member of the victims.
According to court documents, on the day of the murders, A called 911 and said that her mother and brother were “lying in bed, unconscious and bleeding from their heads.” She reported that her 15-year-old brother N might also be at the home.
While police talked to N, he stated that he’d been in his room taking a nap and didn’t hear anything. An officer asked him if there were weapons in the home, and N said he wasn’t aware of any “guns” in the home.
“At that point, (the boy) had not been told by EMS or police officers that the incident involved a gun or gunshot wounds,” police wrote in the warrant.
During the afternoon of March 28 of the day of the murders, N was taken to the Saratoga Springs Police Department with his father accompanying him.
“During this time, (he) repeatedly asked for his cellphone, so much so that at one point his father snapped at him, told him to ‘stop worrying about his cellphone,’ and that getting his cellphone back ‘wasn’t important right now.’ When considering this information combined with the fact that (the teen) was allegedly home asleep at the time of the incident, detectives believe that information from (his) phone will help establish a timeline of when he was awake and or that it might contain other information that could be used to help establish when the crime occurred,” according to one of the warrants.
Detectives also found “dried seminal fluid on the sheets adjacent to where Jessica had been lying.”
Items found in both Jessica and N’s rooms include matching fishnet stockings – one in each bedroom. “Also found in (the teen’s) bedroom were several pairs of small, female panties,” police wrote.
N’s bedroom was said to be cluttered. Officers found two BB gun pistols, plate carriers and magazine pouches, and a handwritten note referencing “several forms of forensic evidence” including “serology,” “DNA” and “firearm testing,” according to the affidavit.
“(A detective) also located a second handwritten note stating, ‘This is a murder story,'” the warrant states.
A doctor at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center told police he found suspicious seminal fluid on Jessica.
Police looked into CCTV from the area surrounding the home. Footage from a neighbor’s camera showed an unidentified individual walking in the area, going in and out from between houses on the victims’ street. The detective wrote that one of the gaps between houses leads to a gravel path that provides potential access to the back of the Lyman family’s home.
At one point, the individual pauses and puts “what appears to be a white mask over his face,” the warrant stated.
Footage from two surveillance cameras provided by a neighbor captures a “wide area south and east” and homes across Willowbrook Lane and on Silvercrest Drive, which “eventually intersects” with Willowbrook Lane, where the Lyman home is.
Both of the cameras captured a person “exiting a gap” between two homes on Silvercrest Drive at about 2:30 a.m. on March 28. The person then walks short distances both north and south on Silvercrest Drive before turning north onto Willowbrook Lane, “only yards north of the Lyman residence,” police said.
The person then approaches and enters a gap between two homes on Willowbrook Lane, walking east. Before walking out of view of the camera, the person pauses and puts “what appears to be a white mask over his face,” according to the affidavit. The person also appeared to be carrying a backpack.
One of those homes is part of the same building as the Lyman townhome. East of the townhomes is a gravel path that runs unobstructed the length of and parallel to all the townhomes, including the Lymans’. The Lyman home can be accessed from that path through a gate or over a vinyl fence and through a sliding glass door into the basement, police wrote.
More doorbell camera footage from March 28 shows the person entering the gap between the two Silvercrest Drive homes at 2:30 a.m. and then returning to the same gap at 3 a.m.
“Nobody was captured either entering into or exiting from the gap for the rest of the night,” police wrote.
In a search of the home four days after the shooting, detectives said they found a white and brown mask that “resembles the mask that is seen on the video recordings.”
Detectives discovered several masks, including a light-colored one, at the Lyman home, according to the warrant. A second search warrant states police recovered a mask from the teen’s room that is white and brown and “resembles the mask that is seen on the video recordings” provided by neighbors.
The home’s sliding glass basement door was unsecured. “No efforts were made to dust and collect fingerprints from that door,” the affidavit states, without explaining why.
On April 13, 2025, a couple walking their dog discovered a discarded backpack “in the reeds along the riverside,” the search warrant affidavits state.
Saratoga Springs police took the backpack to the police department, opened it, and found “a dark hoodie and rubber gardening gloves” that appeared to have dried blood on them, according to the warrants.
Homicide detectives working this case were then called and continued searching the backpack and “observed that there was also black beanie-style hat, a small flashlight, a head lamp, and a black neck gaiter-style facemask that had a partial white skull/jaw printed on it.”
Investigators also found “a large amount of animal hair throughout the backpack and on many of the items. This animal hair was similar to the cat and dog hair that was found throughout the residence where the homicide occurred,” the warrants state.
“Furthermore, the black beanie-style hat also contained what appeared to be human hair on the inside of the hat. The mask also appears consistent with and or looks similar to the mask worn by the suspicious male seen on Ring doorbell videos walking through the neighborhood on the morning of March 28.”
Detectives carried out another search warrant on Jessica’s home on April 23 and reported finding one black Nike slide/slipper in the teen boy’s room.
“Detectives have observed (the teen) wearing these shoes in multiple pictures found on (his) phone, and they appear similar to the shoes worn by the masked suspect seen walking through the neighborhood on various doorbell cameras,” one warrant says.
Investigators received a forensic download of Lyman’s phone and found a conversation between the mother and teen son from July 2024 in which the teenager sent profanity-laden messages calling her names and telling her to leave him alone. Some messages included: “I don’t like you go away,” “Do you need to learn how to shut your mouth,” “I’m more happy when I’m not around you,” “Shut up witch,” “Do you know how insignificant you really are to my life? Very insignificant,” and “I wish I died in your stomach.”
“Additionally, detectives located a note where (the teen) indicated that he wanted to kill himself.”
After N initially spoke to police on March 28, he obtained legal representation and has not spoken to them since.
“ Detectives have been informed that (he) is being represented by counsel and that on the advice of counsel, he is unwilling to speak with the investigators.”
Detectives also learned that N “spent a large amount of time online and using/playing a VR headset” and have served search warrants on his cellphone, tablets and other electronic devices.
In one search warrant, investigators looked for the keywords “mask,” “22” and “backpack” in the search history of those electronic devices. Investigators say the gun used to kill Jessica and her son was a .22 caliber weapon.
“Detectives have been told that (the teen) has been staying at (his father’s home in Cedar Hills) for the majority of the time since the incident occurred on March 28, except for a period of several days where (he) was admitted into a behavioral unit” at an area hospital, one affidavit says.
Police say investigators also “found several photographs taken by (the teen) of him holding a black Glock 9mm handgun in his bedroom at (his father’s) house,” according to one warrant. “Detectives believe that this clearly shows that (the teen) had access to firearms while living at (his father’s) house and that this access appears to have been unsupervised, as the pictures do not show anyone else is present while (he) is taking pictures of the guns while in his room.”
A was interviewed by police on March 30. She showed investigators texts between her and her mother, as well as her call log, the night before the shootings. The girl also talked about a suspicious man that her mother had met at a park several weeks earlier.
But detectives also note in their June affidavit that “since this first and only interview with (the daughter) on March 30, detectives have been told that (her father) will no longer allow (her) to be interviewed by detectives without a lawyer being present. Detectives have requested to be able to interview (her) but have not heard back.”
Detectives also spoke to Jessica’s ex-husband on April 17 with his attorney present. Police asked if he had surveillance cameras at his Cedar Hills home or video from the night of the killings.
“(He) told detectives that he did have cameras and that he did have surveillance video from the night of the homicides. While telling detectives this, he offered to show detectives the footage on his phone, at which point (his) attorney told detectives that they would review the video before releasing/providing it to detectives. Since the interview, detectives have requested the video multiple times but have been told that it is taking a while due to the ‘size of the files requested.’ It has now been over one month since the interview with (the father), where the video was initially requested, and the video has still not been provided to the detectives,” the warrant states.
On May 20, detectives served a search warrant on the father’s home and collected his phone and his daughter’s phone.
“The search also produced ammunition, including .22 caliber bullets, (the 15-year-old boy’s) VR headset, and various items of evidentiary value,” according to a warrant.
A return to that search warrant states that detectives also found the matching black Nike slide shoe on a closet floor “under multiple bins” and something listed as “printed safety plan documents” in the teen boy’s closet.
“Also, since the execution of the original search warrant, members of Utah County search and rescue searched the nearby Jordan River for weapons. Dogs — specially trained to locate metallic objects, including guns — were deployed throughout the subdivision, and drones were used to search the area from the air for weapons. No weapons were found,” the warrants stated in June.
Jessica’s family made a statement to the media and said that their lives are “forever changed.”
“While we continue to wait for answers, we remain hopeful that justice will be served and those responsible will be held accountable,” their statement read in part. “We miss Jessica and Eli every single moment of every single day. When we are together as a family, we can’t help but feel incomplete. We miss their smiles, their laughter, and their joyful spirits. Please continue to keep our family, and everyone affected by this senseless tragedy, in your thoughts and prayers.”
“If you have any information that could help move this case forward, we urge you to come forward and contact the Saratoga Springs Police Department. Jessica and Eli deserve justice, and even the smallest detail could help law enforcement in their ongoing investigation,” they wrote.
SOURCE LIST
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1244-N-Willowbrook-Ln-Saratoga-Springs-UT-84045/119287897_zpid
https://people.com/dna-mask-and-note-found-after-utah-mom-8-year-old-killed-11770116
https://www.wingmortuary.com/obituary/jessica-lyman
https://www.wingmortuary.com/obituary/eli-painter