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A decade after a Spanish Fork High School sophomore disappeared, leaving her purse and other personal belongings behind in her locker, a federal grand jury has indicted a Utah man on charges that he provided a false alibi in the case for a friend.
The indictment, which was unsealed Friday, accuses 28-year-old Scott Brunson of six counts of making false statements to an FBI agent and one count of perjury for allegedly lying to a grand jury last year about whether his friend ever asked him to lie about his whereabouts on May 2, 1995, the day Kiplyn Davis was last seen.
Brunson, a Spanish Fork resident, was arrested Friday and will be arraigned Monday before U.S. Magistrate Samuel Alba in Salt Lake City. He faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each count.
The arrest is the first public break in the disappearance of then-15-year-old Kiplyn, a bubbly girl with wavy red hair. Her father last saw her when he drove his daughter to school for her early-morning driver-education class.
For nearly three weeks, Spanish Fork police insisted she was a runaway and declined an offer of help from the FBI. Her parents, Tamara and Richard Davis, said she would not willingly leave the area and passed out fliers asking for help.
Once the police decided it was an abduction, officers diligently followed up on every lead, according to Richard Davis. And hundreds of volunteers began knocking on doors in the Spanish Fork area to help find the missing girl.
The search and a $1,000 reward offered by the Davises turned up nothing. The case faded from public attention for the most part, receiving a little publicity in late 1996 when Kiplyn's picture was put in an advertising mailer featuring missing children and in 1999 when her family held a memorial service at the Spanish Fork Cemetery on the teen's birthday.
U.S. Attorney Paul Warner said Friday that no arrest in Kiplyn's actual disappearance is imminent.
However, he added, "We feel confident that we'll get to the bottom of this. Ultimately, I'm confident some individual or individuals will be arrested."
The investigation appears to center on the whereabouts of someone identified in the indictment as U.P., for Unnamed Person. Brunson, who was a senior at Spanish Fork High School at the time of Kiplyn's disappearance, is accused of lying during his testimony to a federal grand jury on April 15, 2004, about U.P.
Among the purported lies was a statement that U.P. never said, "If anyone asks, I was here with you working on the shingles" and Brunson's denial that he had told another friend that U.P. tried to use him as an alibi.
The indictment alleges that Brunson also lied when questioned several times last August and September by FBI Special Agent Mike Anderson.
Brunson allegedly said U.P. was with him the entire day on May 2, 1995, building a shed at his home and again denied that U.P. requested an alibi or confessed to being involved in Kiplyn's disappearance.
Warner declined to speculate on whether Kiplyn is alive but did say, "With 10 years passing in time, we have to assume the worst in that regard. It's important to get to the bottom of this and get some closure for the family and bring the perpetrators to justice."
Anyone who has information about the case should contact the FBI at 801-579-1400 or the Spanish Fork Police Department at 801-798-5070.