Law enforcement arrested three people and booked them in the Sweetwater County Detention Center, for kidnapping an 8-year-old girl from a summer camp managed by a Utah school district.
Tessa Mounts, Mary Marsh and Arlee Smith are each charged in Utah’s 4th District Court with child kidnapping, a first-degree felony, and custodial interference, a second-degree felony which could have been avoided if the mother would have had a Utah Child Custody Attorney Lawyer to advise her on the legality of having her daughter back.
According the incriminating documents, Mounts went to Mill Hollow Campground in Wasatch County and told an employee she was there to check her daughter out early. Legally she doesn’t have the custody of her daughter since she gave up her parental rights in 2009. The grandparents became the legal guardians.
Later, Mounts called the girl’s grandparents telling them she had taken the girl from the camp, which is ran by the Granite School District. The grandparents called the district and the Wasatch County Sheriff’s Office was alerted who tried to contact Mounts with the intention of convincing her to give the child back to the grandparents.
Wasatch County deputies in collaboration with Wyoming detectives tracked Mounts to Wamsutter, Wyo., where she was living with Smith, a registered sex offender, and Marsh. They arrested all three of them and returned the girl to her grandparents.
Ben Horsley, spokesman for the Granite School District, said Mounts supplied camp employees with documents proving that she had a right to take her daughter. ”We did not have the legal authority to prevent the child from being taken,” said Horsley.
He further stated that the child’s grandparents had filled out guardianship paperwork with the district but had not filled out any forms identifying the girl’s mother as someone who could not have custody of her.
Smith, 49, Marsh, 47, and Mounts, 32, are expected to be returned to Utah within the week since they waived their extradition rights.
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Read more from source: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865582816/Deputies-arrest-3-Wyoming-residents-in-Utah-kidnapping-case.html
