SALT LAKE CITY — Death row inmate Ralph Leroy Menzies, whose execution by firing squad was put on hold in August so he could have a new competency hearing, has died of natural causes.

The Utah Department of Corrections issued a statement Wednesday afternoon that Menzies, 67, “passed away from presumed natural causes at a local hospital at 1:45 p.m. today.”

Corrections officials say they made the announcement after Menzies’ next of kin were notified as well as the family of Maurine Hunsaker, the woman he was convicted of kidnapping and brutally murdering in 1986.

Hunsaker’s family released a brief statement, remembering their loved one as “a loving young wife, mother, sister, daughter and friend,” while calling her death “brutal, violent and depraved.” They thanked the Salt Lake County D

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