SALT LAKE CITY — A man convicted in one homicide and who remains a person of interest in his wife’s death will remain in prison for at least a few more years.
In a decision issued Wednesday, the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole denied Dale Bradley’s petition for parole, but scheduled another hearing for April 2030. Bradley will have another chance at parole then.
Bradley killed Bryan Ruff in 1991.
In a short written decision, the parole board noted Bradley “caused substantial physical or psychological injury to the victim(s) that is greater than similar offenses within the same sentencing guideline crime category.”
“The victim and/or victim’s family,” the written decision added, “expresses significant impact, financially, emotionally or physically, and does not support release.” Ruff and Bradley worked as guards at the Kennecott Copper mine. Ruff had been having an affair with Bradley’s then-wife.
Bradley, at his parole hearing on April 15, said he went to “talk to Bryan because I was having marital problems.”
Ruff remarked running away with Bradley’s wife.
“I got my gun out of my car and I shot him, and it was over,” Bradley calmly explained.
He said he then drove Ruff’s body and dumped it in a “bar ditch.” Someone in Five Mile Pass discovered the body about 18 months later.
Addressing Ruff’s family, Bradley said: “I do want to say I’m sorry. I know I can’t fix what I did, but I hope they can just move on and fix their lives without drama from this.”
Bradley wasn’t charged with any related crimes until 2005. Bradley entered an Alford plea, which allows a defendant to plead guilty without admitting guilt, to manslaughter and kidnapping charges.
A judge sentenced Bradley to prison until 2045. The parole board could release him before then.
Ruff’s widow, Jennifer Campbell, asked that the board keep Bradley, now 56 years old, in prison. She was angry he was even being considered for an early release and said the parole hearing traumatized her again.
Through sobs during the parole hearing, Campbell recounted having one child and being pregnant with another, discovering the affair and then that her husband was missing. She said she still panics when family doesn’t immediately answer their phones.
“He was there when Bryan was murdered,” Campbell said. “He was there when Crystal was murdered. He knows what happened.”
Crystal is Crystal Bradley – Dale Bradley’s second wife. She was found stabbed to death outside the couple’s home in Wellington in 2005.
No one has ever been charged in connection with her death. Tom Stefanoff, who investigated the case for the Carbon County Sheriff’s Office until his retirement in 2017, told FOX 13 that “the evidence in this case points to [Dale Bradley’s] involvement in her murder.”
At his parole hearing, Dale Bradley again denied killing his wife.
“It’s not a charge I’ve been charged with,” he said, “and I didn’t do it. I’m not going to admit to something I didn’t do.”
Investigators in Salt Lake County took a new look at the Ruff homicide after receiving word that Dale Bradley was being investigated in the death of Crystal Bradley.