Cedar City police said a woman was able to use her powers of persuasion to talk a man out of raping her.
The man broke into the woman's home about 3 a.m. Sunday, police said.
"He entered her house, took a knife from her kitchen and went into her bedroom where she was asleep," Cedar City Police Sgt. Jerry Womack said Monday. "He held the knife to her neck and threatened her and told her he wanted to have sex with her."
Police said the 23-year-old woman then spent the next hour talking to the man, trying to persuade him not to rape her. She told him she was sick and that her husband was going to come home from work soon.
"She really engaged him in conversation," Womack said. "She says they talked about religion, they talked about a whole bunch of different things."
After an hour, the woman excused herself to go to the bathroom and that's when she called 911. By the time officers arrived, the man had left her home.
The woman provided investigators with a detailed description of the man. He lived in the same neighborhood and she had seen him around, officers said. After knocking on several apartment doors, police located the man.
"He did make some admissions," Womack said. "He went there with the intention of having sex with her. He said he was lonely."
Police recovered a steak knife from the man's apartment they believe was stolen from the woman's home. Jose Juan Ayungua, 18, was booked into the Iron County Jail on investigation of aggravated burglary, aggravated sexual assault, aggravated kidnapping, all first-degree felonies; and theft, a class B misdemeanor.
E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com