A 5-year-old boy, with blood on his face and soaked with water, was seen going door to door looking for help in West Valley City, police said.
A woman who was seen looking for the child, and was heard saying she had just tried to kill him, was later arrested.
According to court documents, West Valley City police received a call Wednesday from neighbors who saw the boy in the area of 3100 South and 6400 West. Witnesses also said they heard the woman saying she had just tried to kill the child, and asking someone to call 911.
According to the court documents, the woman, while in custody, tried without success to take an officer’s gun from its holster. She touched the gun twice, and said police would have to kill her.
Neighbors told police that the woman went back into her home — which she shares with the boy — after he was being helped by other people. The woman then came outside naked, entered a neighbor’s house, assaulting someone and “exposing herself to a juvenile in the home,” court documents said.
Police arrested the woman Monday, accusing her of burglary of a dwelling and intentionally or knowingly abusing a child — both second-degree felonies — and disarming a police officer, a first-degree felony.
The Salt Lake Tribune generally does not identify people who have been arrested until formal charges have been filed.
The child told neighbors that the woman hit him with a statue and tried to drown him, court documents said. Witnesses reported the boy had deep lacerations and bruises, and moved and spoke with difficulty. The child told his guardian that the woman tried to keep him from escaping, so he went through a back door.
Police later found a video that showed the woman “partly striking the child,” according to court documents. Police found “a large amount of blood on multiple levels” of the house, along with a bathtub covered in blood and filled with water. Police also found a broken statue.
The child was treated at a hospital and has been released, according to a press release from West Valley City police.
Utah 3rd District Court Judge Laura Scott ordered the woman be held without bail, determining she “would constitute a substantial danger” or flee if she were released.