Nevada Man Found Guilty of Rape & Murder of Teen Who Considered Him a Big Brother

Bryce Dickey has been found guilty of first-degree murder and sexual assault with a deadly weapon for the 2020 death of 16-year-old Gabrielle “Britney” Ujlaky.

A jury found Dickey guilty on Thursday in Elko District Court after four hours of deliberation. They unanimously voted to convict him of all charges against him, PEOPLE reported.

Dickey was 18 years old when he committed the crime. He picked Ujlaky up from Angel Park in Elko on March 8, 2020, and she was never seen again.

After she disappeared, Dickey, who the victim considered a “big brother,” allegedly told deputies different stories about what had happened.

Initially, police say he claimed that he had seen the teen get into a green Ford F-150 pickup truck with a tall man wearing a cowboy hat. However, the man and the truck were never found, and prosecutors think he made it all up.

Three days after vanishing, Ujlaky’s body was found wrapped in a blue tarp. She had been both raped and fatally stabbed.

Authorities acted quickly to close in on Dickey, using his inconsistent stories and physical evidence found at the scene to pin him. Dickey’s blood-stained boots and a used condom containing his DNA were found by the teen’s body. Dickey admitted to having sex with her on the day she vanished, but he claimed it was consensual.

And the defense insisted that Dickey hadn’t killed Ujlaky. “You will not hear any evidence that anybody anywhere saw Bryce Dickey kill Britney Ujlaky,” defense attorney Gary Woodbury told the jury.

But prosecutors fought back by presenting a witness who testified that she had previously dated Dickey, and said that he had repeatedly gotten violent with her, including choking her at least four times. But they did not bring forth an eyewitness.

“I want you to think about whether crimes like murder and sexual assault are crimes often committed in front of other people,” prosecutor Tyler Ingram told the jury. “That wouldn’t be very smart.”

In the end, jurors agreed with the prosecution and found Dickey guilty. The jury will come together on Monday to deliberate his sentence.

He faces up to life in prison without the possibility of parole.