PLEASANT GROVE, Utah (ABC4) – A man has been charged after allegedly shooting and killing his mother in Pleasant Grove early Friday morning.
Pleasant Grove Police say the suspect is Gage Dinehart, 21, who allegedly shot and killed his mother, Nicole Dinehart, 40.
Officers discovered a woman’s body near the area of 200 west 200 north around 12 a.m. after responding to reports of gunshots.
When police arrived at the scene, they found Dinehart’s body shot to death. Her body was lying in the middle of the road next to an SUV with both the driver’s side door and the passenger door left open.
Police say the woman’s body was found with “lots of blood” on her head and what appeared to be a bullet hole in her chest.
As emergency staff attended to the victim, police say the suspect approached paramedics, saying he had committed a crime. Police noted he was behaving erratically while telling officers, “I shot my mom.”
The suspect told police the location of a handgun he allegedly used to shoot his mother. Officers found the handgun lying on the grass at the Pleasant Grove Cemetery near 500 north 100 east.
During interviews with the victim’s husband, police discovered the suspect and his mother had been arguing earlier in the day and they’ve had a “bad relationship” for some time. The victim’s husband says the suspect was agitated that day and had demanded money from his mother. He said the mother mentioned she would be driving to the bank and taking the suspect with her at that time.
The suspect had been previously convicted of child abuse/neglect in March 2022. In that incident, Dinehart was found by police smoking marijuana with another person while two infants were in the backseat of a car — a one-month-old and a 21-month-old.
