Tooele Man faces murder charges in a 1972 cold case.

VERNAL, Utah. A 74-year-old Tooele man has been charged with murder in the 1972 shooting death of a Vernal Army veteran.

The Eighth District Court charged Darrell Eugene Choate with murder, a first-degree felony.

On November 26, 1972, 21-year-old Army veteran Gregory Nickell took his 18-year-old boyfriend to a scenic overlook near Vernal.

The man approached the car and knocked on the window, saying that there had been an accident and he needed help. When Nickell turned away, the man shot him several times with a pistol.

He and his accomplice burned a car on a country road with Nickell’s body inside.

The woman was kept with them until sunrise and then released 60 miles from where the incident began.

Lynnette Nickell Ray, Greg’s sister, realized something was wrong the next morning when Greg didn’t show up for work. Eventually, she said, Sheriff Arden Stewart came to their house with Greg’s date.

“Where’s Greg? She said they killed him,” Ray said.

It took decades to figure out who “They” were.

In 2019, evidence in this case was sent to the Utah State Crime Lab for DNA processing. This led to the identification of one of the suspects, Daniel Arthur Bell.

“Who, as it turned out, had already died at that time. But it was a start,” Ray said.

In September 2020, Bell, who died in 2019 in Yakima, Washington, was matched by DNA collected.

With the help of surviving family members as well as criminal records, officials learned that Bell lived in the Uinta Basin in 1972 and was familiar with the area’s back roads.

He left Utah after 1972, was convicted of rape in Oregon in 1988 and paroled in 1999, after which he moved to Washington and married again.

According to the probable cause statement, interviews with Bell’s wife in Washington revealed that her husband told her that his friend “Gene” was involved in a rape that occurred in Washington. Bell’s wife said Bell and “Gene” had not seen each other since the 1980s or 1990s.

A DNA sample was eventually collected from Darrell Eugene Choate by law enforcement officers who called his home on an unrelated call.

This sample was compared to a DNA sample from an unknown suspect. The probable cause statement further stated that Choate is a direct DNA match to one of the suspects who killed Nickell.

“When my brother was killed, I talked to him, of course he wasn’t there, but I knew he was there in spirit and I told him 52 years ago I was never going to stop, I was going to find whoever did it . this is for him,” Ray said.

Now Ray has only one question she hopes to answer.

“I just want to be able to look him in the face and ask him why,” Ray said.

According to the probable cause statement, Choate resides in Tooele but is not currently in custody.

FOX 13 News called the Uintah County District Attorney’s Office and the Uintah County Sheriff’s Office as well as the Tooele Police Department to see if we could get answers as to why he is not in custody. At this time we have not received a response.