Chilling search history on Utah father’s phone included: ‘Can neighbors hear gunshots?’
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Pat Reavy, KSL.com
ENOCH, Utah (KSL.com) — As police continue to piece together how the tragic murders of an Enoch family unfolded, newly released information continues to suggest that the killings were premeditated.
The bodies were discovered by the Haights’ neighbors who entered the home on Jan. 4 to conduct a welfare check. Upon discovery of the bodies, police were called.
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Tausha Haight, 40; Haight’s mother, Gail Earl, 78; and Haight’s children — Macie Lynn, 17; Briley Ann, 12; Sienna Belle, 7; Ammon, 7; and Gavin Drew, 4 — were found shot to death by the children’s father and Haight’s husband, 42-year-old Michael Orwin Haight, who then took his own life, inside their home at 4923 N. Albert Drive.
One of the search warrants served by investigators on the house was to collect all the electronic devices. An iPhone was found on Macie’s bedside table, a second iPhone “on a luggage pile a couple feet from her bed,” and five phones, tablets and iPads found in the master bathroom attached to the master bedroom where the bodies of two adults and a child were discovered.
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An iPhone was also located next to Michael Haight’s body. Those electronic devices were sent to the Utah Tech Digital Forensics Lab for analysis.
According to a newly unsealed search warrant affidavit, police researching Michael Haight’s Google search history on his phone found searches that included:
- “How loud is a 9mm?”
- “How loud is a 40mm?”
- “Can you hear a gunshot in a house?”
- “Can neighbors hear gunshots?”
There were also additional searches related to those. These searches took place on Dec. 30, 2022, between 10 a.m. and 12 p.m., and five days prior to the murders-suicide, the warrant states.
Previously, it was reported by Tausha Haight’s relatives that in the days leading up to the killings, Michael Haight had all the guns from the home removed.
The night before the bodies were discovered, on Jan. 3, Tausha Haight and one of her daughters were seen at a church function, according to the Enoch city administrators. A prior search warrant also disclosed that one of the Haights’ daughters sent a text message to a friend that night, “stating her dad came home, was acting strange and she was worried.”
About the same time Enoch police were called to make a welfare check on the Haight residence, Cedar City police took a missing persons report involving Michael Haight. His Ford F-150 was found parked at his parents’ residence in Cedar City.
According to the search warrant unsealed Tuesday, police went to Michael Haight’s office in Cedar City, where he worked as an insurance agent, on Jan. 5.
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“There were typed out journal entries on Michael Haight’s desk, along with the family trust portfolio, and printouts of an article ‘How to cope with petty people,'” the warrant states.
A receptionist told police that “Michael was in his office that day up until approximately 2 p.m. when he allowed her to leave early for the day,” according to the affidavit, presumably referring to Jan. 3.
The new warrant seeks the seizure of Haight’s office computer and any electronic storage devices at his office.
Although a possible motive for the killings has not been announced, Tausha Haight filed for divorce on Dec. 21. In 2020, Enoch police investigated reports of possible physical and emotional abuse by Michael Haight against his eldest daughter, but criminal charges were never filed as Tausha Haight told police she hoped her husband was on the road to change and that criminal charges wouldn’t be appropriate at that time.