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Murder charges filed in beating death of 61-year-old man in central Utah

Prosecutors in Emery County filed murder charges on Friday in a case of a body found in a ghost town in the San Rafael Swell.

On May 2, deputies found the body of William Randy Jones, 61, in the Mohrland area, according to a news release from the Emery County Sheriff’s Office. It was later determined Jones died of blunt force trauma.

“The investigation led to Brandon Michael Samples as the primary suspect,” according to the news release.

Samples was was taken into custody shortly after the discovery of the body, the news release said. At the time, Samples had been on parole for an unrelated matter.