Police arrested a man Tuesday night believed to be the rapist preying on young girls.
"We got the guy, and, boy, are we thrilled," said Salt Lake police Lt. Judy Denker.Sex-crimes detectives were searching Salt Lake neighborhoods Tuesday looking for people who met the description of a man who has been stalking young girls throughout the city.
Detective Kyle Jones was following a vehicle in the Rose Park area Tuesday evening when the suspect passed him.
"He (Jones) said, `I like this one better,' " Denker said. "It was just one of those intuition, hunch deals."
Jones made a U-turn to follow the suspect and recognized the driver as a man he had seen in the area earlier that morning. The man's license plate also matched a plate number that a Rose Park woman had reported as suspicious.
The detective took a photograph of the man and included it in a photo spread that was shown to victims and witnesses that evening.
At least two and possibly more people positively identified the man as the rapist.
"They went out and snared him last night," Denker said. Officers also conducted a search of his vehicle and removed some evidence. Investigators declined to specify what evidence they obtained.
James Kenneth Holt, 37, 1547 University Village, was booked into jail for investigation of rape of a child, two counts of aggravated kidnapping and aggravated sexual abuse of a child.
Investigators had been following up on new reports, leads and possible suspects who matched the description.
"We got a lot of help from the public," Denker said. "We certainly don't want people to let down their guard thinking this is an isolated incident. There's other dirt bags out there."
The suspect is believed to have raped a 15-year-old girl who has a learning disability and sexually assaulted a 9-year-old girl during separate incidents earlier this month. Police say he has tried to lure at least five other young girls over the past 2 1/2 weeks.
On Friday, another 9-year-old girl and her 10-year-old brother said a man tried to pick them up near 600 North and 1200 West.
The children were walking home from a Rose Park grocery store about 5 p.m. when a man approached them and asked them to help him get his dog, which was stuck under something. The man told them he needed their help because his hands were too big to reach it, a police report states.
Their mother had just recently warned the children about such a scenario after learning from news accounts about a man luring children with stories of a lost dog or a broken toy. After they were confronted, the children ran home and told their mother what had happened.
The mother immediately accompanied her kids back to the store to see if they could find the man.
While mom checked the parking lot, the boy spotted the man inside the store and ran outside. As he was telling his mother, the suspect came out of the store and the woman yelled at him to stop. The man paid no attention to the woman, who yelled for others to help her stop him, the report states.
The man began to run while the woman chased him, but she eventually lost track of him.
Another woman told police that her daughter was riding her bike in the same area two days earlier when a man approached her and asked her to help him look for his dog. The girl said no and left.