This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2010, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
A police investigation into the apparent murder-suicide of a restaurateur and his wife will not be completed for at least a month, but Provo Police detectives are confident that the tragedy is what it appeared — a consensual death pact.
Police say the managers of the Provo Marriott found Steven Runolfson, 56, a founder of La Caille restaurant, and his wife, Lisa, 57, on a bed in a blood-splattered room on Christmas night after the couple had failed to check out after a Christmas Eve stay.
"The obvious result from the preliminary autopsy was that they both died from gunshot wounds," says Capt. Cliff Argyle. The medical examiners determined that Steven Runolfson shot his wife, then turned the gun on himself, Argyle said.
A complete autopsy, including a toxicology report, will not be completed for at least a month, he said.
In a voice mail left for family members earlier on Christmas Eve, police say, Steven Runolfson warned that "they were not coming home and not to have a service for them."
Family members immediately reported the couple missing to Salt Lake County's Unified Police Department, which in turn put out an alert that the couple was a possible danger to themselves.
Although it was Steven Runolfson's voice on the message, investigators believe that Lisa was a voluntary participant in the death pact, said Argyle. "It's something that we are still investigating, but the feeling we got from the scene itself and from contact with the family [is] leading us to [the conclusion] it was a mutual decision to undertake the deaths."
Some friends and family of Steven Runolfson say an ongoing legal dispute over the restaurant led to the suicide pact. His former La Caille partner, Mark Haug, won a $4.7 million court award in March over a contract dispute with Runolfson and another partner, David Johnson (who is also Lisa Runolfson's brother). The partners and their families fear the monetary award and legal expenses of the suit will destroy the restaurant they had built over 40 years. The court award forced the 20-acre parcel that includes the restaurant to be listed for sale for $19.9 million.
Johnson's son Eric Johnson said the legal and financial stress may have been too much for the Runolfsons to bear.
Haug's lawyer Jim Magleby says his client is distraught. "They basically were his family. This was a contentious lawsuit, but as far as I know, it wasn't going to bankrupt them."
Argyle said investigators did not find a note or anything to "completely clarify what their intent was," but from police interviews with family "so far the only thing we're hearing is the financial problems and the problems with the lawsuit."