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WEST JORDAN — Two 14-year-old girls claim they were abducted off the street by three men, taken to a hotel and sexually assaulted.
One man has been arrested — Andrew James Gwilliam, 35, of South Jordan. He was convicted more than a decade ago of kidnapping six young girls and young women in Sandy and is already on the sex offender registry after having served time at the Utah State Prison.
Gwilliam was arrested Friday and booked into the Salt Lake County Jail for investigation of two counts of kidnapping, two counts of forcible sexual abuse and two counts of violating parole, according to a Salt Lake County Jail report.
West Jordan police were called Friday to a hotel, where they found Gwilliam, the report states. The girls told detectives they were walking on 6200 South to go to a 7-Eleven when a car pulled up beside them.
Two men got out and forced them into the car, said West Jordan Police Sgt. Joe Monson. The driver, who stayed in the vehicle, was identified as Gwilliam, according to the report. The other two men had not been identified as of Monday.
The case is still under investigation, but the girls have not been cooperative with detectives, according to Monson who did not elaborate.
Previous kidnapping charges
Gwilliam made headlines about a decade ago when he brandished either a gun or a knife and kidnapped six young girls over a seven-month period in the Sandy area.
He pleaded guilty to attempted forcible sexual abuse and two counts of aggravated kidnapping, and prosecutors dismissed charges of attempted child kidnapping, aggravated kidnapping and two counts of attempted aggravated kidnapping.
Gwilliam was sentenced to 10 years to life at the Utah State Prison. He was released in January of 2012 and is currently listed on the state sex offender registry.
When Gwilliam was sentenced in 2003, a pre-sentence report noted that he apparently began to behave strangely after suffering a severe head injury while serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His defense attorney at the time said his neurological problems could be treated with medication and therapy.
Police say he found the six victims in 2001 and 2002 — ranging in age from 12 to 20 — while they were walking home from a friend's house or church, riding a scooter in the case of the 12-year-old, or getting out of a car when he forced them either at gunpoint or knifepoint into his vehicle. Prosecutors in 2003 said all six feared they would be raped or killed.
In one case, court records state that Gwilliam drove up to an 18-year-old woman, forced her into the car and, while threatening to kill her, made her drive as he held the gun to her head and ended up in a church parking lot.
Gwilliam said he was going to rape the woman, who pleaded to be let go, and he insisted he would kill her if he didn't get what he wanted, court records state.
