Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Sam Penrod Reporting A registered sex offender is behind bars, suspected of molesting a four-year-old neighbor girl.
Lance Baker appears on Utah's Sex Offender registry. His address is listed. That address is for the Utah County jail. It was updated on Monday, after his arrest last Friday.
But we found Baker has a history of not registering, which may have prevented the girl's family from knowing a sex offender was living nearby.
A grandmother is still in shock after learning her four-year-old granddaughter was molested. What's worse is that the suspect in the crime lived just two doors away from their apartment in Pleasant Grove.
Victim's Grandmother: "He was a registered sex offender, which I did not know. It made me sick."
The girl disappeared for several minutes this month and was finally seen coming out of the man's apartment.
Victim's Grandmother: "According to her, he had pizza, pizza and ice cream is what he was using to lure her. But she got close enough to the porch, I think he grabbed her hand and drug her in."
Police began investigating and later arrested Lance Baker on charges of aggravated sexual abuse of a child.
Capt. Cody Cullimore, Pleasant Grove Police Dept. "The individual had lured the little girl into the apartment. He had given her the gift of a watch while she was there. When she was in the apartment he had forcibly sexually assaulted her."
Police already knew Baker was a registered sex offender.
Capt. Cody Cullimore, Pleasant Grove Police Dept. "The individual was arrested last May by our department for failure to register as a sex offender."
We did some investigating and found Baker has been in and out of jail 10 times since 1991, for charges including lewdness involving a child to attempted forgery.
Criminal History
- 1991 possession of alcohol as a minor
- 1992 car thieft
- 1994 making false reports
- 1999 lewdness involving a child
- 2002 attempted forgery
- 2005 criminal mischief and trespassing
- 2006 failing to register as a sex offender
We found Baker pleaded guilty to not registering as a sex offender in August. The judge gave Baker 90 days in jail, but with credit for time already served, so Baker was out a month later.
Six weeks later is when investigators say he molested the girl.
Her grandmother says the victim is doing better, but other family members are suffering.
Victim's Grandmother: "I'm doing worse than she is. I'm not eating. I'm not sleeping."
Lance Baker is in jail and prosecutors are preparing charges against him that are so serious, he could face up to life in prison.
