OGDEN, UT — A nearly 30-year-old Ogden homicide case has been resolved after an inmate in Iowa confessed to killing Richard Billmayer, according to Ogden City Police. Billmayer disappeared in 1997, but authorities said his family did not hear from him again after that year.
Police first learned in 2008 that Billmayer had been missing for 11 years. Detectives opened an investigation, but the case eventually went cold. The new development came after years of follow-up work, including a later review by outside cold-case investigators and another trip to speak with the inmate in Iowa.
Police learned of Billmayer’s disappearance 11 years after he vanished
Ogden City Police said the timeline of the case began long before anyone realized he was missing. Billmayer was last known to be in contact with family in 1997, but the disappearance was not reported to police until 2008. By then, investigators said, 11 years had passed without contact.
That delay created the first major hurdle in the case. Detectives started looking into Billmayer’s disappearance, but the investigation stalled and eventually became inactive. Police did not say what evidence they had at that stage or why the case went cold, only that the passage of time complicated the search for answers.
2019 Iowa prison visit gave detectives a new lead
Investigators took another look at the case in 2019 and traveled to Iowa to meet with Richard Annis, an inmate convicted in an unrelated homicide. Police said that meeting helped move the investigation forward, although important details were still missing after the visit.
That follow-up was part of a broader effort to revisit older cases and test whether new information might surface. Even so, detectives said they still lacked enough information to close the file at that point. The Iowa interview appears to have provided a foundation for later work, but it was not yet the final breakthrough.
Cold Case Coalition research pushed investigators back to the prison
In 2025, the Cold Case Coalition began looking into Billmayer’s case and shared its research with detectives. That outside review prompted police to return to the Iowa State Penitentiary and speak with Annis again.
According to Ogden City Police, this second prison interview produced the key development in the case. Police said Annis confessed to killing Billmayer and gave details that matched information detectives had already developed. Investigators said those details corroborated their findings, helping confirm what happened in the 1997 homicide.
Police have not released the circumstances of Billmayer’s death
Even though the case is now considered resolved, police have not released the circumstances surrounding Billmayer’s death. Officials said they were not disclosing those details as they described the outcome of the long-running investigation.
The department framed the case as an example of why cold cases continue to matter even decades later. In a statement, police said cold cases are difficult because time creates obstacles, but those obstacles do not reduce the importance of the victim or the duty to keep looking for the truth.
A 1997 killing now tied to a confession and corroborating details
The resolution links the disappearance, the later investigation and the inmate’s admission into one timeline. Billmayer went missing in 1997, police were alerted in 2008, detectives revisited the case in 2019, and a renewed push in 2025 led back to the Iowa prison interview that produced the confession.
For investigators, the case shows how older files can change when new research and cooperation come together. Police said the confession included facts that aligned with their investigation, which gave them enough to say the decades-old homicide had finally been solved.
Ogden cold case now closed after years of follow-up work
Ogden City Police did not say whether any additional charges, hearings or next steps are expected in connection with the confession. The department’s statement focused instead on the case outcome and the challenges officers faced over time.
The long gap between Billmayer’s disappearance and the eventual confession also underscores how difficult missing-person and homicide cases can become when witnesses, memories and evidence fade. In this case, detectives relied on repeated review, outside research and another interview with the inmate before they said they could close the book on the killing.
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