A 44-year-old man was arrested by Roy Police in Weber County after allegedly attempting to kidnap a girl and intending to rape her.
According to the probable cause statement, a 10-year-old girl reported she went to the gas station for a snack on Friday night. While in the store, a man also inside the store “made her not feel good,” and when she exited the gas station with her snack and got on her bicycle, she saw the man outside pacing, and it “made her feel even worse.”
The man walked westbound on 4400 South, and when she went to pass him, he “grabbed her around the neck.” The girl screamed and held the bicycle until the man let go, and the girl dropped her purse in the driveway of a nearby house.
When the girl arrived home she told her mother, and officers recovered her purse where she had dropped it. When the girl was interviewed at the Children’s Justice Center, she gave a physical description of the man, and an officer reviewed surveillance footage at the gas station to find the man.
While the officer was reviewing surveillance footage, the driver of the vehicle had come back to the store, and the officer was able to read the front license plate of the vehicle and find an address. Further research identified the suspect in the case, whom an officer recognized “from a case involving a sexual assault that his officers investigated.”
The suspect and two other males were detained when they exited the house. The suspect agreed to talk with officers and told them he “observed a young female that he believed to be 10 to 11,” and when he saw the girl leave, he “grabbed the girl and planned to take her behind a nearby vacant house and have sex with her.”
The man is being held without bail and is under investigation for child kidnapping. He was previously convicted of unlawful sexual activity with a minor and is a registered sex offender, according to the Utah Department of Corrections.