In the quiet community of South Jordan, Utah, a heart-wrenching event unfolded on November 15, 2013, claiming the life of 12-year-old White/Caucasian male, Taylor Wheeler. What began as a gathering of young friends in the basement of a home on Pine Canyon Way descended into a tragedy that would leave two families shattered and a community in mourning.
Taylor, a student at Copper Mountain Middle School, was known for his gentle smile and kind words, a boy who was described by his mother as "a smile and a hug."
Inside the suburban home, a group of five boys, including Taylor, were together in the basement. Unbeknownst to the homeowner who was upstairs, the boys were handling three stolen handguns. The playful atmosphere turned deadly when one of the teens, 15-year-old Dayton Gessell, accidentally discharged the weapon he was holding. The single gunshot struck and killed Taylor Wheeler. In the chaotic moments that followed, some of the boys ran from the house to seek help, flagging down an off-duty police officer who lived nearby.
The investigation that followed pieced together the devastating sequence of events. South Jordan police determined that in a state of extreme distress over having accidentally killed his friend, Dayton Gessell then used the gun to take his own life. The medical examiner's office subsequently classified the deaths as a murder-suicide. Investigators learned that the firearms had been reported stolen earlier that same day.
While Dayton Gessell was identified as the one who fired the shots, the police inquiry did not end there. Detectives traced the origin of the weapons and discovered they had been stolen by another boy present in the basement. A 16-year-old, who was one of the two brothers living at the residence, had stolen the three guns from a relative's home in the nearby city of Sandy. As a result of his actions, he faced charges in juvenile court for aggravated assault, for pointing the weapons at the other boys, as well as felony theft and aggravated burglary related to the theft of the firearms. The homeowner was not charged, as she was unaware of the guns' presence or what was happening in her basement.
