Second suspect in Utah kidnapping arrested

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Authorities in Wyoming said late Saturday the second suspect sought in the luring of a woman and her four teenage daughters to a Utah house and tying them up in a basement was arrested without incident.

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Dereck James “DJ” Harrison, 22, was believed to be armed and dangerous as authorities with the Sublette County Sheriff’s Office were joined by the Wyoming Highway Patrol, Green River Police Department, Rock Springs Police Department and the Utah Department of Public Safety in the search in Pinedale, Wyoming.

Authorities said Derek Harrison walked toward deputies shortly after they decided to suspend the search for the night.

“This is an incredible end to a very stressful day,” Sublette County Sheriff Stephen Haskell said in a statement. “Watching the coordination of our agencies working together was phenomenal. We have incredibly skilled officers in our area and it was a very good end to something that could have gone very badly.”

Flint Harrison, 51, Dereck’s father, turned himself in to authorities less than 24 hours before his son’s arrest.

Authorities evacuated the Half Moon Lake campground and set up a roadblock on one road Saturday, according to the station. The search also included a police helicopter with infrared capabilities.

The Sublette Sheriff’s Office urged Pinedale residents earlier Saturday to consider sheltering in place until the DJ Harrison was apprehended, the station reported.

The woman and her daughters are recovering.

Police had been seeking the Harrisons since the Tuesday attack in Centerville, Utah. The two had been using methamphetamine heavily over several days and falsely believed the woman had reported them to authorities, police said.

The younger Harrison was a close friend of the woman's family. He often visited the home for dinner or picked the girls up from school. The teens, aged 13 to 18, had known him for several years.

The men are accused of tying the mother and daughters up with zip ties. When the elder Harrison hit the woman with a baseball bat, the teens began to break their ties and try to escape, according to charging documents. In the struggle that followed, one girl slapped away a shotgun pointed at her throat and another grabbed the bat and hit the son, police said.

The victims managed to escape.

The Harrisons fled and were eventually picked up by someone who took them to Salt Lake City, where they spent Tuesday night in a hotel. The elder Harrison is a registered sex offender in Pinedale, Wyoming, where he surrendered for reasons still unknown to police.
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