SANDY, Utah — A 48-year-old Utah man was arrested after police said his attempt to abduct a little girl was foiled by the child’s stepfather.
Troy Mitchell Morley is suspected of two felonies — child kidnapping and burglary, the Sandy, Utah, police department said in a written statement.
“The motive for the abduction and intentions of the suspect towards the child are not known,” police said in the suburban Salt Lake City community.
A spokesman for the family told CNN affiliate KSL on Friday afternoon that the girl was OK.
“At this moment, she seems pretty healthy and pretty happy,” Miles Holman told the station.
Police said there was no connection between Morley and the family.
According to a news release from the Sandy police, Morley broke into the family’s home around 4:30 a.m. Friday and found the girl sleeping in the basement. He woke the girl and told her to come with him, the statement said.
The girl’s parents were awakened by the sound of the front door and the stepfather saw the assailant carrying his daughter across the front lawn.
In the 911 call attained by CNN affiliate KUTV, the girl’s mother describes the moment when she and her husband realize something is wrong.
“We heard the front door open and I heard her talking. She’s just the sweetest little thing. I heard her voice and we ran out,” the sobbing woman says.
The dad confronted the suspect and the man let go of the girl and ran. He was unarmed, the 911 caller says.
“But he was saying something that he’s messed up and someone’s going to hurt him,” she tells the dispatcher.
The man was later caught while hiding in another home after crawling through a doggie door, authorities said. KSL spoke to the home owner.
“I went downstairs, and he was crouched up, kind of by the back door with no shirt on. And he just said like, ‘Am I bad? Am I in trouble?’ I just started screaming and ran up the stairs and told my husband, ‘There’s a man in the house,'” Tina Olsen told KSL.
After Morley refused to come out, a sheriff’s canine went in and bit the suspect on the shoulder and upper right arm, police said.
Morley is being held in the Salt Lake County Jail and hasn’t had a preliminary hearing, said Sgt. Cammie Skogg, a spokeswoman for Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office.
Troy Mitchell Morley
Neighbors told KSTU in Utah that they have not seen seen Troy Morley in days.
“Strange,” one woman said when asked to describe Morley. “Very creepy, very paranoid.”
Another woman said she caught Morley in her backyard barefoot and without a shirt after her dog wouldn’t stop barking.
“He said at the time that he thought I had lived alone and he saw a light come on and he thought I was getting broken into,” the woman told KSTU. “So he hopped the fence.”
