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Gary Dean Hilfiker, who is serving life sentences for the unrelated murders of two Utah women, says he has accepted responsibility for his heinous crimes and made positive changes since becoming a born-again Christian behind bars.
And now, Hilfiker wants an opportunity to be paroled.
At a Utah Board of Pardons and Parole hearing on Tuesday, he said his addiction to drugs and alcohol at the time of the killings in 1989 and 1992 had led to a kind of psychosis that drove his behavior.
"The person I was back then is not who I am today by any stretch of the imagination," Hilfiker, now 57, said. "At that time in my life, I was a man that was self-serving. I didn't realize what kind of person I was at that time. I didn't understand the effects that drugs and alcohol had upon my life."
Hilfiker was convicted of stabbing a friend, 38-year-old Marsha Haverty, at her Salt Lake City home on April 24, 1992, then pouring kerosene over her and setting her body on fire. He was sentenced to two consecutive terms of 5 years to life in prison for murder and aggravated arson.
At a 2010 hearing before the parole board, Hilfiker said the two got into an argument over his drug use and that he killed Haverty while in a "discombobulated state." He was granted an April 26, 2022, parole date.
In 2014, Hilfiker was charged in the slaying of Flora Rundle, a 71-year-old whose body was found Oct. 22, 1989, inside her South Salt Lake home by family members. She had been stabbed and suffered blunt force trauma, according to court records.
The case went cold until new DNA technology connected Hilfiker — who had been a cabdriver and driven Rundle to the store and doctor's appointments — to the crime.
Hilfiker admitted he cut Rundle's phone lines before breaking into her home to rob her, then stabbed her when she woke up and stole a few hundred dollars from her purse.
He pleaded guilty to first-degree felony aggravated murder and was sentenced to up to life in prison, with the term running concurrent with the first life sentence.
The parole board rescinded the 2022 parole date after Hilfiker was charged in Rundle's death.
Tuesday's proceeding, conducted by board member Robert Yeates and recorded for other board members, was held to determine whether the inmate should be granted another parole hearing.
"I'm a man who wants to serve others now, a man who puts other first," Hilfiker said Tuesday. "For my crimes, I can never say how sorry I am enough."
A decision, made by majority vote, will be issued within 30 days, Yeates said.
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