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FARMINGTON — A Centerville man who, along with his father, is charged with kidnapping and assaulting a woman and her four daughters waived his right to a preliminary hearing Wednesday.
Dereck James "DJ" Harrison, 22, was declared indigent and appointed a public defender in court Wednesday and waived his right to a preliminary hearing, where prosecutors would have presented evidence against him and a judge would have determined whether there was sufficient evidence to send the case to trial.
Arraignment was scheduled for June 20 before 2nd District Judge Michael Allphin.
Meanwhile, police in Utah and Wyoming continue to investigate whether Harrison and his father, Flint Wayne Harrison, came in contact with Utah Transit Authority employee Kay Ricks during their run from the law. Ricks' body was found May 17 in Wyoming, about an hour from the area where the two men were arrested.
The Harrisons are each charged with five counts of aggravated kidnapping, a first-degree felony, and five counts of aggravated assault, a third-degree felony, among other charges.
Police say on May 10 the Harrisons used a ruse of meeting for a barbecue to lure a Clinton woman, whom Dereck Harrison was acquainted with, to a house in Centerville, 190 N. 700 East. Instead, they met the woman and her four teenage daughters with a shotgun, a baseball bat, zip ties and duct tape already ripped into strips, charging documents state.
The father, 51, and son took the woman and her four daughters — ages 13, 15, 17 and 18 — into the basement where they bound their hands and feet and began hitting the mother, charges state.
The girls either broke the ties or their hands were small enough to slip through them. As the two men tried to contain the females who were scattering, police said the men pointed a shotgun at them and hit them with the baseball bat. When they couldn't recapture the girls, the men fled.
The men were arrested following a nearly five-day manhunt.
Police say Dereck Harrison may have been retaliating against the Clinton woman, believing she had ratted him out about something, though at the time investigators said there was no indication something like that had actually occurred. Family members told police the men had been using drugs for days and may have been in a state of methamphetamine-induced paranoia.
