A man who spent more than 20 years in prison could see his murder conviction vacated — if a court approves Salt Lake County prosecutors’ newly filed petition.
In the petition filed Monday, Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill’s office asks a judge to vacate the 2001 conviction of Adrian Whitfield Gordon, who was found guilty in the death of Lee Lundskog.
The move to vacate was recommended by the Conviction Integrity Unit of the district attorney’s office, which examines old cases. Gill concurred on the unit’s decision.
Gordon has not been declared innocent in Lundskog’s death, the D.A.’s office said — and if the court vacates the conviction, prosecutors could start over.
“Technically, we’re back to square one,” Gill said Monday.
If a judge signs off on the petition, which Gill said he considered likely, the district attorney’s office would then go back to Salt Lake City police to review the case evidence. Then his office would look to see if prosecutors could meet the burden of proof, and whether a prosecution “will serve the interest of justice,” he said.
Information presented by the Rocky Mountain Innocence Center, the petition reads, “raised a legitimate question as to whether Mr. Gordon was the person who committed the murder, and at the very least presented questions as to whether his conviction lacked integrity.”
Lundskog, 50, was found stomped to death behind a 7-Eleven in Rose Park on Sept. 29, 2001. The D.A.’s office filed a first-degree felony murder charge against Gordon, then 20, five days later, on Oct. 4. He was found guilty on Dec. 20 of that year. The following April, Gordon was sentenced to five years to life.
In the petition, prosecutors called the short time frame — 82 days from Lundskog’s death to Gordon’s conviction — “not only unusual but … unheard of for a case of this nature and with such immense consequences.”
In 2021, the district attorney’s office said, an attorney working on Gordon’s case for the Rocky Mountain Innocence Project contacted the Conviction Integrity Unit. They argued that the lead Salt Lake City police detective failed to investigate, or even disclose, that someone else had been identified as Lundskog’s killer.
The evidence that detective didn’t pursue consisted of an anonymous caller who, shortly after Lundskog’s death, said they knew who the killer was and shared their address, according to the district attorney’s office.
The person found at the apartment the caller pointed to was detained, questioned and arrested on outstanding warrants — but the report was logged under a different case number than the homicide.
None of that information was disclosed, either, to prosecutors or to Gordon’s defense, Gill’s office said.
The Conviction Integrity Unit investigated Gordon’s case, Gill’s office said, and determined that the conviction was compromised — in part because the detective didn’t follow up on a possible suspect or explain why that person was eliminated as a suspect.
“This is not about actual innocence but about processes,” Gill said, adding that the purpose of the Conviction Integrity Unit is to see that fair and ethical processes were followed.
In 2016, the Utah Court of Appeals rejected Gordon’s bid to reverse the murder conviction, The Salt Lake Tribune reported. The three-judge panel said the evidence that was not disclosed “was not material” to the case, and the judges said the evidence would not have affected the outcome. A lawyer for the Rocky Mountain Innocence Center represented Gordon then, too.
Gordon was paroled in 2023, a spokesperson for the district attorney’s office said Monday. He told The Salt Lake Tribune earlier this year that he believed he was wrongfully incarcerated.
Gordon, now 44, credited Channae Haller and the nonprofit she founded, Justice by Objectives, for helping him adjust to life after prison.
“When you have somebody that goes through that type of mental and spiritual stripping, it’s very hard to go from that to out here, where the entire culture is different,” he said. “So if you don’t have somebody you could vibe with and they just get you, everything’s going to be uncomfortable.”
— This is a developing story. Check back for updates.