Boy, 15, arrested in 12-year-old Utah girl's death
WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah - Police arrested a 15-year-old boy Friday in the death of a 12-year-old girl whose body was found in an overgrown horse pasture near her home in suburban Salt Lake City.
West Valley City Police Chief Lee Russo said investigators think the teen is the sole suspect. Russo declined to give the boy's name or discuss anything about him because he's a juvenile. Russo said the teen will likely be charged with murder.
Russo identified the girl as Kayley Vijil. Russo said the boy lured her out of her house around midnight. CBS affiliate KUTV reports police say there was no texting communication between the suspect and the girl; instead, they say, the only communication happened at the door of the girl's home.
Russo says it doesn't appear the suspect and Vijil had a prior relationship. According to KUTV, neighbors reportedly helped to point investigators to the suspect because he was known by the community.
"I believe a good-natured child was fooled," Russo said.
The girl's body was found after her mother got worried when she didn't come right home. She told two officers at a nearby convenience store at around 1:30 a.m. that her daughter was missing.
Police narrowed the search using the girl's cellphone signal, honing in on the large, overgrown pasture about four blocks from her home and finding a depression in the grass where investigators think she was killed.
Vijil's body was discovered at about 3 a.m. Police said there was "evidence of trauma," though authorities declined to specify how she died.
The family placed a handwritten sign on their house Friday asking for privacy.
Neither the girl nor her family had a history of run-ins with police, said West Valley City police spokeswoman Roxeanne Vainuku.
"This isn't about parenting," Russo told reporters during a press conference. "What we are investigating is the death of a 12-year-old girl."