Vigilance is always the best policy
Tad Walch
Had I seen the recent brief item in the paper, she wanted to know, about the 21-year-old man arrested at Seven Peaks Water Park for touching a 14-year-old girl inappropriately over her swimsuit, right out in plain sight?
"Yes," I said, with a growing sense of foreboding.
"Well," she went on, "I kept meaning to talk to my daughters about it because I drop them off at Seven Peaks twice a week."
Uh, oh.
"When I finally brought it up," the mother continued, "our 11-year-old told me the same thing happened to her. We called the police and she identified the same man. The police told me another girl, a 6-year-old, also came forward."
The voice was calm and reasoned. She wanted a newsman's advice. How could she cajole the newspapers into printing the assailant's photo? "If there are other girls, they need help," she said, and the police also told her that if there are other girls and they come forward, the assailant's sentence would be longer, if convicted.
The reply stunned her: "Which one?"
A security worker told her such incidents had happened four times this year, including one that very day, when a 71-year-old man was arrested because of an alert lifeguard.
The man was swimming prone in a very shallow part of the children's wading pool when the lifeguard saw him approach a 13-year-old girl and touch her chest, according to court documents filed Thursday. He also allegedly touched a 6-year-old boy's genitals before security arrived.
As I researched my caller's story, I discovered a 21-year-old young man struggling with life.
In August, Wesley Wade Thompson was arrested for leaving the scene of an accident. He pleaded guilty but violated his sentence by not paying a $446 fine.
On Jan. 15, Utah Valley University police gave Thompson a ticket for reckless driving. He failed to appear in court, was arrested on a warrant, pleaded guilty in April and was fined $344.
On Jan. 27, Lehi police allege that he sexually abused a 4-year-old girl, a second-degree felony. Eerily, a court document in this ongoing case notes on June 6, just a couple of weeks before he was arrested at Seven Peaks, that Thompson would undergo a psychosexual evaluation.
On May 26, May 30 and June 2, Orem police arrested Thompson for criminal trespass. Evicted from the Parkway Crossing apartment complex in Orem, Thompson returned again and again. He pleaded guilty to two charges on Wednesday; the others were dismissed.
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