Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
HURRICANE, Washington County — A Utah man was arrested Thursday after police say he brought a 12-year-old runaway girl from Hurricane and a 13-year-old runaway from Colorado City, Arizona, to a hotel.
Theral Dockstader Hammon, 49, was arrested for investigation of kidnapping, two counts of harboring a runaway juvenile, two counts of contributing to a minor's delinquency, and two counts of distributing or offering a controlled substance.
The investigation began when Hurricane police officers received a report of an adult male trying to get young girls into his car. The car was later found in the parking lot of the Super 8 hotel in Hurricane; the girls were not found in the room, but were later located by police, according to a police booking affidavit.
Hammon, who has no listed residence, admitted to picking up the girl from Arizona the day before at her grandmother's home where she lives, without her guardian's permission, the affidavit states.
A girl told officers that Hammon and the 13-year-old girl went to a home in Hurricane and he tried to get her and another 12-year-old girl in the car while adults told them not to go with him, but one 13-year-old who came with him and one of the 12-year-old girls got into the car, according to the affidavit.
Hammon allegedly told officers he brought the 13-year-old girl and a friend to the hotel, got a room and brought them pizza and then stayed in his car playing on his phone. He told the officers he knew the girls were young and planned to bring them home that day, police said.
Officers found a green substance that Hammon admitted was marijuana and tin foil with a burnt substance that tests showed was methamphetamine, the affidavit alleges.
The 13-year-old said Hammon had tried to get them to smoke methamphetamine and marijuana with him and tried to force himself on her, but she pushed his hand away "several times," the affidavit says.
