Long before the guilty verdict, police records and family accounts painted a picture of fear inside the Sampsons’ home.
ST. GEORGE, Utah — When Niki Ahlquist Sampson was found dead in her home on Sept. 1, 2024, investigators did not treat the scene as a routine medical emergency for long. They saw bruises, read her journal, and began tracing warnings she had already given police.
Those pieces became the backbone of the murder case against her husband, Eric Larsen Sampson, who was convicted on Feb. 6, 2026 and later sentenced on March 23 to 15 years to life in prison. The state’s case mattered beyond one night in St. George because it turned on whether a death first described as a health crisis could be shown, through records and repeated conduct, to be the violent end of a domestic abuse pattern.
The first official alarm came before the killing. Months earlier, Niki Sampson had called police and said her husband “was coming after her,” according to court documents summarized in local coverage. The account that followed was specific. She said he pinned her to a bed by pressing his knees onto her arms and pulling her hair. After she got free and ran outside, she said he followed her into the backyard and threw her to the ground. Officers who responded said they smelled alcohol on Eric Sampson, saw bloodshot and watery eyes, and heard him repeat himself. He told police he had only grabbed her to calm her down and said she had hit and kicked him. That earlier case remained part of the story because he was out of custody on those charges when she died.
The second alarm was physical evidence in the home. On the night of Sept. 1, police were called around 8:35 p.m. to the couple’s two-story house in the Little Valley area of St. George after a report that a woman was unconscious and not breathing. Officers found Niki Sampson, 47, dead on a bed. Reports from the arrest investigation said she had suspicious bruising on her arms and face, with marks in different stages of healing and many appearing fresh. A neighbor told FOX 13 that a welfare check had been made earlier that day and that she had been alive then. Police said Eric Sampson was the only other person inside the home. He spoke to officers after being advised of his rights, admitted he had been drinking, discussed prior fights with his wife, denied causing the visible injuries, and gave what police described as false and inconsistent statements.
The third alarm came from Niki Sampson’s own words. Investigators said they found a journal in the home with entries describing Eric Sampson as angry and aggressive when drinking. The notes said she wanted to escape and, in one entry, feared for her life. That kind of document did not stand alone, but prosecutors used it to place her death inside a continuing pattern rather than a sudden mystery. At trial and again at sentencing, Eric Sampson kept pointing to liver problems and insisted he wanted to know what caused her death. The jury rejected that explanation. Reports from sentencing said jurors had accepted evidence showing 47 bruises and a death tied to lack of oxygen. That contrast — her written fear against his claim of illness — became one of the clearest fault lines in the case.
Once the case reached trial, the timeline sharpened. Prosecutors presented evidence over five days. Jurors deliberated about eight hours and returned a guilty verdict at about 7:45 p.m. on Feb. 6, 2026. The charge was first-degree felony murder. Judge Eric Gentry immediately ordered Sampson into custody ahead of sentencing. The case had been delayed months earlier after prosecutors disclosed a significant amount of evidence late, which led to his release to home confinement in July 2025 while the defense reviewed the material. His lawyers argued the delay was not his fault and that keeping him jailed longer would violate due process. The delay did not change the final verdict, but it became one of the more closely watched turns in the court process because it meant the accused man spent part of the pretrial period outside jail.
At sentencing, the court heard not just from lawyers but from the family members who had lived nearest to the damage. Daughter Shaley Encinias said she once moved her family into the home because she feared for her mother’s safety. She said she still heard the yelling in her mind and now had nightmares about what her mother suffered. Son Brady Sampson said he lost both parents in one event, his mother to death and his father to the crime that caused it. Niki Sampson’s sister, Mindy Pratt, told the court the marriage had become a prison built from fear, control and humiliation. Judge Gentry then turned back to the defendant and said he showed a complete and shocking lack of remorse. The court imposed the maximum sentence for murder, plus consecutive time for lesser counts, and barred contact with the adult children.
The case stands, for now, as a record built from warnings that were spoken, written and photographed before a jury ever heard the evidence. As of April 16, 2026, the conviction and sentence remain in place, with any appeal or post-conviction filings expected to mark the next step.
Author note: Last updated April 16, 2026.