Jennifer Gledhill, the Utah mother of three charged with killing her husband after he allegedly discovered she was having an affair, has been denied bail after new evidence was brought forward in her case.
During a Feb. 28 detention hearing, which was shared online by local news outlet KSL 5 on March 1, prosecutor Emily Paulos from the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s office alleged that Gledhill, 42, called an informant and confessed to killing her husband, Utah National Guardsman Matthew Johnson, 51, on Sept. 22, 2024 — six days before he was reported missing.
“On September 22, the defendant confessed to the informant that she shot Matthew in the master bedroom with a gun as he slept,” Paulos said at the hearing, referring to Gledhill. “She also confessed that she loaded Matthew’s body into a rooftop storage container, slid him down the stairs and loaded him into her minivan. She buried him in a shallow grave and cleaned everything up.”
Paulos went on to reveal more details of the alleged phone call, which prosecutors said the informant recorded, including that Gledhill allegedly told the informant that she did not want them to view her as a “monster” after learning what she had done.
Gledhill also allegedly said that it “broke her heart” that the informant was now “scared” of her, and she seemingly attempted to justify her actions by saying, “Like, he [Johnson] just — he is — he’s not a person. He wasn’t a person anymore. He wasn’t Matt anymore,” Paulos said.
Paulos added that Gledhill allegedly referred to her husband in the past tense on the call, despite him not having been reported missing yet.
Additional evidence was also brought forward during the hearing, including maps tracing Gledhill’s whereabouts the morning after the alleged crime, as well as images of a storage container containing traces of Johnson’s blood.
Later in the hearing, defense attorney Jeremy Deus spoke, saying: “I think when you’re looking at evidence, oftentimes, when we’re doing this job, you realize pretty quickly that there are often […] two sides to every story. […] I think there’s a lot of that here in this case.”
The Salt Lake City District Attorney’s Office and Deus did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment on Sunday, March 2.
Gledhill was charged in October 2024 in connection with the disappearance and death of her husband, per a media release from the Salt Lake County District Attorney.
Gledhill has pled not guilty to nine felony charges against her, including first-degree murder, and she has waived her right to a preliminary hearing, according to court documents previously reviewed by PEOPLE.
According to local media outlet Fox 13 News Utah, Johnson’s body is yet to be found. Gledhill allegedly told the informant he was buried somewhere north of their Cottonwood Heights home, per the detention hearing.
