‘Real Time Crime’ features Huntsville murder-suicide, Weber County Sheriff’s Office
The Weber County Sheriff’s Office was recently featured on the latest episode of “Real Time Crime,” an Investigation Discovery show that recaps real crimes using live security and police footage from the events.
The second half of “Vow of Silence” (Season 2, Episode 4) uses police body camera recordings, drone footage and interviews from several Weber County detectives to tell the story of Scott Russell, who killed his wife, Gina, in 2020 and died by suicide shortly thereafter. The episode focuses on the detectives’ use of Ogden’s Area Tactical Analysis Center, or ATAC, a real-time crime monitoring system.
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What is ATAC?
“Their main priority is to monitor the city using cameras that are placed on various streets, buildings, more populated areas and areas of high crime,” Detective Dustin Stewart, who was interviewed for the episode, said of the center. “There (are) people that sit in ATAC that monitor those cameras 24/7.”
However, ATAC’s security cameras do not extend into Weber County’s more rural areas. Detective Kayla Dallof, who was also featured in the episode, explained that the sheriff’s office also uses a mobile command center with several drones in order to capture footage during sensitive situations.
These drones came in handy in November 2020, when police received a phone call from Colorado resident Trevor Russell to report that he believed his father, Scott Russell, had shot and killed his stepmother, Gina Whitaker Russell.
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According to the “Real Time Crime” episode, police quickly moved in on the Russells’ Huntsville home. They flew a drone around the house to ascertain whether anyone was inside. Through an open window, police were able to get a visual of what appeared to be a body on the ground of one of the house’s bathrooms.
What happened to Gina Russell?
Police entered the Russells’ home and found Gina deceased, with several gunshot wounds. Trevor Russell said in an interview for the episode that Gina was a kind, loving person, according to the broadcast.
“She was always a very quiet, very gentle woman,” Trevor Russell said in the episode. “They were so good for each other, and you could just tell how well she treated my father.”
Trevor Russell said he never expected Scott Russell would do anything like this, but that he appeared to be suffering from a mental health crisis.
“The person that I was talking to that night, it didn’t seem like my father,” Trevor Russell said. “Something was wrong.”
What happened to Scott Russell?
Police did not find Scott Russell inside his home and noticed his car was missing. They used a neighbor’s security camera footage to ascertain the time he had left and put out an alert for his vehicle, the broadcast detailed.
Investigators received a tip from a family friend that Scott Russell may have fled to a cabin in the mountains, and they used drones to search the area remotely but did not find him. Two days after they began their search, police received a call that someone had seen a car crash near Pineview Reservoir.
Investigators again used drones to survey the area, and when they approached the vehicle, they found Scott deceased from the trauma of the crash. Detectives said in the episode that based on the speed of the vehicle at the time of impact, Scott Russell had likely driven the car off the road on purpose in order to die by suicide.
Weber County detectives credited the technology with helping them investigate the case and stay up-to-date.
“There’s not a day that goes by that we don’t utilize the technology that we have with ATAC and with the mobile command and drones,” Stewart said in the episode. “We don’t know what we would do without it, and I think it’s only going to get better as time goes on.”
