A 39-year-old man from Saratoga Springs has been booked into the Salt Lake County jail awaiting extradition to Nevada in connection with the murder of a woman there.
According to a statement from the Lyon County Sheriff’s Office in Nevada, detectives traveled to Utah on Monday with assistance from local law enforcement and the U.S. Marshal’s Office to arrest Robert Matthew Richards. Richards is a suspect in the murder of 25-year-old Sara Filiatraut, whose body was discovered in a remote area of Nevada’s Churchill County on May 22.
Filiatraut had last been in contact with her family about a month before her body was found, and she was reported missing and endangered. The Washoe County Regional Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed her death as a homicide.
Richards, who had been staying in Nevada at the time, was identified as a suspect. Authorities also served a warrant at his former residence in Colorado, where they collected additional physical evidence, according to the Lyon County Sheriff’s Office statement.
Based on the evidence gathered during the investigation, an arrest warrant for Richards, charging him with first-degree murder, was issued in late July.
On Monday, Richards was taken into custody and booked into the Salt Lake County Jail in Salt Lake City, Utah. He will remain there until he is extradited to Lyon County to face trial for the murder of Sara Filiatraut.
The statement expressed gratitude to the law enforcement officials in Nevada, Colorado, and Utah, including the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office and the Saratoga Springs Police Department. It also urged anyone with information on the case to contact the Lyon County Sheriff’s Investigative Division at detective@lyon-county.org or 775-463-6600.
