After several hours of interviews with a man extradited to Utah this week, police still have no leads on the whereabouts of his former live-in girlfriend, who disappeared from their Spanish Fork apartment last July.
"Mike Kufrin stated he had not seen her since they attended a party together on July 9 but said she had contacted him several times. He said he does not know where she is," said Dee Rosenbaum, Spanish Fork police chief, in a statement released Thursday.Rosenbaum said last week that he believed Kufrin, 32, was the key to "finding out where Peggy is and what happened to her."
Peggy Ellsworth Case, 28, was last seen at a party with Kufrin on July 9. Kufrin responded to Case's behavior with anger and jealousy, witnesses said. Kufrin called Trojan Corp., Case's employer, saying she would not be in the following Monday through Wednesday.
Kufrin's call and earlier behavior made Case's co-workers suspicious, Rosenbaum said. They described Case as a serious worker who would not endanger her job with an unexplained absence. Case's co-workers alerted Spanish Fork police, who visited the couple's apartment. Kufrin said Case had gone to Reno with a girlfriend to purchase a car. The girlfriend denied the story.
After police had questioned him several times, Kufrin left Spanish Fork on Sept. 30. He was arrested in Caliente, Nev., on Dec. 23 on charges of possession of a car and firearms stolen from his former Payson employer. Last week, Kufrin was ordered extradited to Utah. Spanish Fork and Payson police returned him to Utah on Tuesday.
Spanish Fork police also are investigating Kufrin concerning an earlier incident of discharge of a firearm and cruelty to animals. But Rosenbaum said the main concern is getting some answers on what happened to Case.