SANDY — Sandy police have opened a new investigation into a man recently charged with human trafficking for allegedly locking a young girl in a shed in Duchesne County for weeks and raping her multiple times.

Jared Stephen Morgan, 37, of Sandy, was charged in September in Duchesne County with aggravated human trafficking, aggravated sexual assault, aggravated kidnapping, rape and forcible sodomy — all first-degree felonies. Morgan is accused of holding an 18-year-old woman captive in a shed for weeks in 2014 and forcing her to perform sex acts to receive food and water, according to Duchesne County prosecutors.

Morgan was also previously charged in 3rd District Court in 2012 with rape, sodomy and aggravated sex abuse of a child. The case was dismissed in 2013 after prosecutors said they could no longer proceed with the likelihood of achieving a conviction, according to court records.

In that case, charges allege that Morgan was assaulting the 12-year-old daughter of a woman he was dating, beginning in 2006, according to court documents. But the girl ran away from home and disappeared from authorities.

On Thursday, search warrants unsealed in 3rd District Court indicate that police are looking again at that case as well as potential new charges involving Morgan and the same girl as well as her sister.

The earlier case

From August of 2012 until September of 2016, the girl's mother "never heard from her daughter and feared she was possibly dead," the warrant states. However, after Morgan was arrested, the girl contacted her mother again.

The girl stated that "from August 2012 through September 2016 she had been living on the Idaho/Canada border, camping near a lake and eventually moved to the Arizona/Mexico border, where she lived in a one-bedroom apartment with David Morgan, Jared's brother, until the time she was 18 and would no longer be listed as a runaway," according to the warrant.

The warrant affidavit states that Morgan's parents also sent money to the home on the Mexico border during the time the girl was missing.

The girl and her sister met Jared Morgan in 2005 when one was 9 and the other 11.

"Throughout the next several years (their mother) said that Jared began to manipulate the family until he was able to 'sink his hooks' into (the girl) and (her sister). Jared made them believe that he was the one they needed by showering them with gifts and drugs. In the interview with (the girl), she disclosed that she had been manipulated by Jared and conditioned to believe that he was all she needed."

According to a search warrant affidavit filed in 2012 in 3rd District Court, the girl and her sister "were frequently sexually abused" by Jared and David Morgan and both girls said they were filmed. Compromising videos and pictures were found on David Morgan's computer, according to the search warrant unsealed Thursday.

The other alleged victim

The warrants also outline more of the alleged abuse the girl held hostage in Duchesne suffered in Sandy.

The girl said "he used the taser as a constant reminder that if she did not comply, she would get hurt," the warrant states. "(The girl) also said that Jared always carried a Glock handgun on his hip, both at the cabin in Duchesne and at his parents' house in Sandy."

The new warrants were served on Oct. 7 at the home of Morgan's parents, where Jared Morgan often stayed. Whether Morgan's parents knew what was happening in the house was unclear Thursday, based on the warrants, though investigators noted, "(The girl) also said she would come upstairs crying and (Morgan's mother) would hug her and tell her to be strong,'" the warrant states.

At one point, that girl and the girl who ran away from home allegedly agreed to a relationship with Morgan at the same time, the warrant states.

The warrants were served on the house at 9650 S. 575 East. Inside Morgan's room investigators said they found a lab set up, "consistent with the production of methamphetamine and others were found to be consistent with the making of homemade explosives," according to the warrant.

A bomb squad, the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration were called to the scene. According to the search warrant, "The National Guard responded and tested several of the items and informed us the items were precursors to homemade explosives, however, were not illegal to have."

As of Thursday, no charges had been filed against Morgan's parents or new charges against his brother.

Jared Morgan's next scheduled court hearing in the Duchesne case in 8th District Court is Nov. 7.

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