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KEY TAKEAWAYS
- A third man, Samuel Teancum Mitchell, is charged as part of the investigation into a missing 15-year-old girl.
- Mitchell faces five counts of sexual exploitation and enticement of a minor charges.
- Alisa Petrov remains missing; her family is offering $20,000 for information on her whereabouts.
SOUTH JORDAN ā A third man has been charged as part of the investigation into a missing and endangered 15-year-old South Jordan girl.
But like the other two, Samuel Teancum Mitchell, 41, of Herriman, is not charged with any crimes directly related to the girl’s disappearance.
Mitchell was charged Friday in the 3rd District Court with five counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, a second-degree felony, and enticement of a minor, a class A misdemeanor. He is accused of engaging in sexually explicit conversations online with 15-year-old Alisa Petrov before she ran away from home. She has not been seen since April 21.
“(Mitchell) confirmed that he had been speaking with (Alisa) and admitted to having planned to meet up with (her), but cancelled due to illness,” according to charging documents.
While investigating Mitchell, law enforcers discovered he had been communicating with a second 15-year-old girl, the charges state. Investigators also found “multiple files of child sex abuse material, colloquially referred to as ‘child pornography,'” on his phone.
Police say Alisa was dropped off by her mother at school at 9:30 a.m. on April 21.
“The juvenile never went to class and was later located on security cameras at a nearby gas station. She was later given a ride by an unknown male to the UTA TRAX station in American Fork, where she traveled to Provo. She was last seen on surveillance footage in Provo on foot,” according to several search warrant affidavits.
While searching her room, police reported finding an iPad hidden in her dresser and discovered she had been messaging multiple people.
On May 12, William Taylor Glines, 37, of Texas City, Texas, was charged in 4th District Court with two counts of aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor and two counts of attempted aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor, first-degree felonies; two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, a second-degree felony; plus enticement of a minor and three counts of criminal solicitation, a class A misdemeanor.
Then, Matthew Nicholas Menard, 35, of Miami, was charged in Utah’s 4th District Court with two counts of aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor, a first-degree felony; plus enticing a minor and three counts of criminal solicitation, class A misdemeanors. He surrendered to South Jordan police on Wednesday and was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail.
Police believe both men were communicating with Alisa before she disappeared.
Alisa remained missing as of Friday. Police believe she had asked multiple people to help her get to Las Vegas, where it is believed she was trying to meet up with people she met online. Her family is offering a $20,000 reward for information leading to her return.
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The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.