Terence Edward Nielsen, a 27-year-old Black/African American man, tragically lost his life on Sunday, November 10, 2019, in a shooting incident that unfolded in a residential garage in West Jordan, Utah. Another man, Anthony Dawson, 29, was also found deceased at the scene from gunshot wounds.
The events that led to the discovery began in the early evening when the homeowner of a residence on Callie Drive heard what he believed to be gunshots.
He was allowing a man to stay in his garage, and upon investigating the noise, he made the grim discovery. Inside the garage, he found one man already deceased and another critically injured. Despite efforts to save him, the second man succumbed to his injuries.
West Jordan police were called to the scene and immediately began an investigation into the two deaths. A firearm was recovered from the garage, and authorities quickly determined that they were not looking for any outstanding suspects, leading them to believe the incident was contained to the two men. Investigators treated the case as a potential double homicide or a murder-suicide as they worked to piece together the sequence of events that led to the fatal shootings.
Terence Nielsen, who was originally from Alabama, was a friend of the man who had been staying in the garage. The relationship between Nielsen and Dawson, and the motive for the shooting, were central to the police investigation. Authorities indicated that drugs and alcohol may have been a contributing factor in the tragic incident. While the initial investigation pointed towards a contained event with no threat to the public, the final determination of whether the deaths were the result of a double homicide or a murder-suicide has not been publicly released.
