SALT LAKE CITY — Attorneys for death row inmate Ralph Menzies made their final plea for mercy on his behalf to Utah’s Board of Pardons and Parole Friday, as the State of Utah is three weeks away from his scheduled execution.

Menzies, 67, is scheduled to be executed on Sept. 5 by firing squad for the 1986 kidnapping and murder of 26-year-old Maurine Hunsaker. The mother of three was found deceased in Big Cottonwood Canyon two days after Menzies abducted her from a gas station in Kearns.

After a two-day hearing, the parole board now has the option to take no action or commute Menzies’ death sentence to life without the possibility of parole, which was not an option when he was sentenced to die in 1988.

“I knew Maurine Hunsaker. She was my mother,” said her second eldest son, through tears

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