A 15-year-old Bluffdale girl - the focus of a monthlong search - was located Thursday in Wyoming.
But Evangeline Rebecca Allred apparently went with a 33-year-old man willingly and was not kidnapped as her family and police investigators had suspected.Both Allred and William Steele were taken into custody Thursday evening after officers - acting on a tip the FBI apparently received from the girl's father - found them driving in a pickup truck on I-80 near Green River, Wyo.
Allred was released to her parents, who traveled to Wyoming to get her. Steele was transported to Salt Lake City, where he was booked into jail for investigation of aggravated kidnapping.
But Steele was released from jail late Friday after the Salt Lake County attorney's office declined to prosecute."We couldn't determine from the information if there was a crime committed in Utah," said Bud Ellett, chief of the justice division in the county attorney's office.
The U.S. attorney's office has assigned an investigator to the case but has not yet determined if the incident warrants any federal charges, such as transporting a minor across state lines.
"We believe Evangeline went willingly. But it's important to understand a 15-year-old girl can't go out of state with a man without permission," said Salt Lake County Sheriff Aaron Kennard.
"Whether she went willingly or not, we believe he violated the law in taking her."
Allred's family last saw her with Steele on Feb. 17 when the two were supposedly going to church. Steele at one time lived with the girl's polygamous family and had expressed interest in joining the group and making Allred his second wife after waiting a year, a sheriff's report states.
Steele's wife, Margo Steele, told the Deseret News her husband called her Thursday afternoon, just before he was arrested, and said he was on his way back home to her and their four children. She said the two of them plan to reconcile their differences.
"I have a new baby and I didn't think he cared any more. But he wants to start over," Margo Steele said. "We're going to try and work things out and see what we can do with this mess."
She said she believes the Allred family should shoulder much of the blame for the incident. "The girl's family teaches that married men are free game . . . That's not right."
Allred and Steele had been in Wyoming for several days, but Kennard said he did not know if they had been there for the entire month. Investigators were still trying to determine whether the incident was planned.
"We're still trying to piece the evidence together," the sheriff said.
Allred's parents, Marvin and Rebecca Allred, visited law enforcement officers and media organizations in five states looking for some sign of their daughter.
Evangeline Allred is the granddaughter of slain polygamist leader Rulon Allred. He was killed in 1977 on the order of rival polygamist Ervil LeBaron, who died in prison in 1980.
The Allreds are members of the United Apostolic Brethren, a Bluffdale group that believes in the early LDS practice of plural marriage. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints disavowed polygamy in 1890.
Allred said his daughter was "in relatively good condition considering all the trauma she's been through. She's happy to be home, but she's finding it hard to deal with right now."
He said Steele "used mental coercion and pressure" on the child, telling her she was causing problems for her family.
"He's been telling her he loves her, and she's just a young girl," Allred said.