The daughters, kidnapped at gunpoint, were forced to drive their captors away on snowmobiles

On a cold winter afternoon, December 22, 1990, the Tiede family was filled with excitement as they arrived at their secluded cabin in Oakley, Utah, ready to celebrate Christmas together.

Rolf and Kaye Tiede, along with their daughters Linae, 20, and Tricia, 16, and Kaye’s mother, Beth Potts, had no idea that two fugitives, Von Lester Taylor and Edward Steven Deli, were already inside, waiting for them.

As they entered the cabin, the atmosphere quickly shifted from festive to terrifying. The family was confronted at gunpoint. “What do you want?” Kaye pleaded, her voice trembling.

“I’ll give you anything!” But before she could finish, gunfire erupted. Tricia recalled the horror, “I saw my mom go down.

I turned and looked over my shoulder at my Grams and saw her get shot in the head. Blood sprayed everywhere… I heard her gasp for some breath.” In that moment, chaos ensued, and the family’s Christmas spirit was shattered.

Rolf, who had been outside, returned to find his family in peril. He rushed in only to be met with violence. Taylor shot him in the face with birdshot, but miraculously, Rolf survived.

As he lay on the floor, playing dead, he watched in horror as the intruders doused the cabin in gasoline and set it ablaze.

“I had to get out,” he thought, fighting through the pain. With incredible determination, he managed to crawl from the burning cabin, start a snowmobile, and drive through the snow to seek help.

Meanwhile, Taylor and Deli abducted Linae and Tricia, forcing them at gunpoint to load the family’s snowmobiles. “Hurry up!” one of the men shouted, urgency lacing his voice.

“We need to get out of here!” The sisters exchanged terrified glances, knowing they had to comply.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” Linae whispered to Tricia as they loaded the snowmobiles, each girl feeling the weight of their predicament.

As they drove away, Linae thought about crashing the snowmobile to escape, but fear for her sister held her back. “I couldn’t leave Tricia,” she later said. They passed their uncle, Randy Zorn, who initially mistook the situation.

“I saw the snowmobiles come up the trail, and I thought, ‘Look, there are my nieces!’ But they had boyfriends on the back or something.

I didn’t know what was going on.” The sisters remained silent, terrified that acknowledging their uncle would put him in danger.

Eventually, the kidnappers abandoned the snowmobiles and forced the girls into the Tiede’s car, trying to evade police. Shortly after, Rolf arrived at Zorn’s cabin, bloodied and in shock.

“I’ve been shot. My wife has been killed, and my daughters have been kidnapped,” he gasped, his face swollen and covered in blood. Zorn immediately sprang into action, knowing the urgency of the situation. “We need to get help,” he said, his mind racing.

A massive manhunt was launched, with Rolf’s escape triggering a wave of urgency. “There are two things on my mind — save the girls, get Rolf on a Life Flight,” Zorn told the authorities.

The police eventually tracked down Taylor and Deli in a stolen car after a tense chase filled with gunfire. They rescued Linae and Tricia, who, though shaken, were physically unharmed.

Back at the burned cabin, investigators made a chilling discovery.

“When I watched the videotape from the crime scene, I expected to see family moments, but instead, there were the two suspects opening the family’s Christmas presents,” lead investigator Joe Offert recounted.

The horror of the situation deepened as the reality of what had happened settled in.

During the trial, Tricia remembered the moment Deli realized Rolf had survived. “The look on his face was priceless, like he had been defeated.

My dad survived. We won.” Taylor pleaded guilty to capital murder and was sentenced to death, while Deli received a life sentence for second-degree murder. Both men remain imprisoned today, facing the consequences of their horrific actions.

Despite the trauma, the Tiede family found strength in each other. “After the cabin had burned, we rebuilt it and made it even better than it was before,” Linae reflected. She recalled her father’s reassuring words: “Linae, I know lightning strikes.

But lightning never strikes twice in the same location.” Those words brought her peace. Whenever fear crept in, she would hear her father say, “Linae… You’re gonna be safe.”

The Tiede family’s story is one of resilience, survival, and the unbreakable bond of family in the face of unimaginable horror.