UTFFEMT
06-17-2005, 02:11 PM
Orem standoff ends with apparent suicide
Chris Peterson DAILY HERALD
Following an hours-long standoff situation, SWAT team members forced their way into a camper in Orem on Thursday night and found a man who is under investigation in a child sexual abuse case dead.
According to Orem police public information officer Capt.
Steve Clark, the man's wife left the home a few days earlier, but tried to return on Thursday.
She found that the locks had been changed and the windows screwed shut.
The woman then started receiving text messages on her cell phone from her
husband indicating that he needed to say goodbye to their four children.
Clark also said that his wife told police she found surveillance cameras in the front and the back.
She then notified Orem police about the situation, but officers were unsuccessful at getting any response from inside the home. They found the man's vehicles, including the camper, in front of the home.
The SWAT team, which consists of Orem, Provo and Brigham Young University police, came to the scene and attempted to communicate with anyone inside the camper.
Clark said a phone was thrown through a window, but they still got no response.
Finally, the SWAT team used a device to knock the camper's door down. A few minutes later, a flash-bomb device was used as a diversionary tactic.
Upon entry, police found the dead body of a white male.
"It's an obvious fatality. It appears to be a self-inflicted death," Clark said, adding that the man was alone in the camper.
Although Clark wouldn't say how the man killed himself or estimate how long the body had been there, he said police think he died on Thursday.
"We're assuming it was today, but we don't know how long he has been there," Clark said.
Clark said the man was being investigated in relation to an existing child sexual abuse case.
Chris Peterson DAILY HERALD
Following an hours-long standoff situation, SWAT team members forced their way into a camper in Orem on Thursday night and found a man who is under investigation in a child sexual abuse case dead.
According to Orem police public information officer Capt.
Steve Clark, the man's wife left the home a few days earlier, but tried to return on Thursday.
She found that the locks had been changed and the windows screwed shut.
The woman then started receiving text messages on her cell phone from her
husband indicating that he needed to say goodbye to their four children.
Clark also said that his wife told police she found surveillance cameras in the front and the back.
She then notified Orem police about the situation, but officers were unsuccessful at getting any response from inside the home. They found the man's vehicles, including the camper, in front of the home.
The SWAT team, which consists of Orem, Provo and Brigham Young University police, came to the scene and attempted to communicate with anyone inside the camper.
Clark said a phone was thrown through a window, but they still got no response.
Finally, the SWAT team used a device to knock the camper's door down. A few minutes later, a flash-bomb device was used as a diversionary tactic.
Upon entry, police found the dead body of a white male.
"It's an obvious fatality. It appears to be a self-inflicted death," Clark said, adding that the man was alone in the camper.
Although Clark wouldn't say how the man killed himself or estimate how long the body had been there, he said police think he died on Thursday.
"We're assuming it was today, but we don't know how long he has been there," Clark said.
Clark said the man was being investigated in relation to an existing child sexual abuse case.