Missing mail carrier turns himself into authorities

Friday, Jan. 17, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

Duane Devere Fox, 26, of St. George, walked into U.S. Magistrate Ronald Boyce's courtroom in apparent pain, his face red and swollen. Defense attorney Robert Booker told the court his client also may have suffered broken ribs from an assault in the Salt Lake County Jail.

The U.S. Marshal's Office is investigating the attack, thought to have occurred overnight. No other details were immediately available.

Fox, who entered a plea of innocent to one count of mail theft, will undergo the psychiatric evaluation at the jail. A decision on his detention was postponed pending the results.

Booker had argued that while Fox was a "moderate flight risk," continued incarceration in jail was "not appropriate. He's clearly not a danger to the community."

Fox called from the Salt Lake area on Wednesday and told posta inspectors he wanted to arrange to surrender and to get an attorney, said Joe Schouten, a U.S. postal inspector in Salt Lake City.

"He just said, 'I understand you want me and I'm here to turn myself in,"' Schouten said Thursday.

The missing money has not been recovered, Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Lambert told Boyce toda.

"At this moment, the $270,000 which the defendant is believed to have taken ... there is still no accounting for," the prosecutor said.

Lambert said Fox had told investigators he had been traveling outside the country last six weeks, but Lambert offered no other details on Fox's journeys.

Earlier, however, Schouten had said Fox had been in Mexico.

The money was mailed from a Wells Fargo office in Salt Lake City to the St. George post office on Dec. 2 and a letter carrier was supposed to take it to the credit union.

Four bags of money left the post office, but only one arrived at the Southern Utah Federal Credit Union. That afternoon, Fox, the credit union's regular letter carrier, disappeared.