The Sanpete County Attorney’s Office is looking into filing charges against a woman who allegedly picked up a Gunnison teen last month, drove her two hours south and dropped her off in Cedar City without permission from the girl’s custodial parents.
The woman, a relative of the teen, initially denied knowing anything about the girl’s disappearance, according to a probable cause statement obtained through a records request.
But when officers pressed the woman, she admitted she’d arranged to pick the teen up and did so, the statement says.
The 17-year-old girl was reported missing by her custodial parents on July 27, the document says, after she did not return home from work.
Police learned that when the teen got off work, she’d gone to a local seminary building to use the Wi-Fi there and used an app to make a call on her cellphone, according to a news release from the Gunnison Valley Police Department. After that, police believe she rode her bicycle to the Gunnison High School football field, where she met up with ”adult suspects, ditched her bike” and left with the adults in a car.
The description of the car at the scene matched the car owned by the teen’s relative, the document says, and when the officer asked whether the relative had been in Gunnison recently, she said she had.
When police asked whether she had picked the teen up, the woman ”got emotional” and admitted she’d arranged to pick the girl up and take her to Cedar City.
The woman told police she’d dropped the teen off in front of an apartment complex near the freeway there, and that ”she did not drop her off to anybody and she did not know where [the girl] went after that point.”
The travel was done without the knowledge of the teen’s custodial parents, the document says. Police located the girl later that night, with aid from multiple local and federal agencies.
The relative was booked into the Sanpete County jail July 29 on suspicion of kidnapping in lieu of $10,000 bail. She was bonded out later that day, according to the sheriff’s office.
Police said in the news release they had found “several suspects complicit” in taking the girl from Gunnison and ”away from her custodial parent” in Centerfield.
Police said the incident was a result of a “complicated scheme the conspirators concocted,” attempting to “hide her out” in Cedar City.
Sanpete County Attorney Brody Keisel said Wednesday that the case is ”still live.” Keisel said the relative who had been arrested has retained legal counsel. Keisel said he has been in communication with the attorney.
“We‘re reviewing reports from police and considering charges,” Keisel said, adding there are ”still decisions to be made” about the case.
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