UPDATE: Authorities locate 2 missing girls in Southern Utah
ST. GEORGE — An Amber Alert has been canceled for two missing Utah girls after the girls were located Monday evening in Iron County.
The Amber Alert was canceled at approximately 7 p.m. after the sisters, 8-year-old Elizabeth Dinah Coltharp and 4-year-old Hattie Briella Coltharp, were found near Lund, a town west of Cedar City, according to The Associated Press.
The two girls were believed to be with 34-year-old Samuel Warren Shaffer, a religious leader and associate of the girls’ father, according to the Amber Alert initiated by the Iron County Sheriff’s Office.
Police took Shaffer into custody Monday, but formal charges had not been filed as this report publishes.
According to a Facebook page dedicated to finding the Coltharp children, 33-year-old John Coltharp had split from his wife and ran off to join a religious/survivalist cult with the couple’s four children.
The following message was posted on the Facebook page Monday evening after the girls were located:
All children have been found and Sam has been arrested. Kids are going to be checked out by medical staff to make sure they are all right, but everyone has been found. We personally want to thank each and every one of you for your help and support!
John Coltharp was arrested Friday on suspicion of kidnapping and obstruction of justice and is being held in the Sanpete County Jail on a $50,000 cash-only bond. He refused to disclose the children’s location.
Two of the four children – William Coltharp, 7, and Seth Coltharp, 6 – were found earlier in the day after the Sheriff’s Office raided a compound in Lund, a small unincorporated village located in the Escalante Valley of northwestern Iron County.
Spring City Police Chief Clarke Christensen said the sisters and two boys, their father and paternal grandparents disappeared in mid-September, The Associated Press reported.
The children’s mother, Micha Soble, filed for divorce Sept. 29 after her husband and children went missing Sept. 14, according to Utah court documents. Soble said her estranged husband was “a doomsday prepper who believes that the world will soon come to an end.”
“(John Coltharp) belongs to a religious group called The Knights of the Crystal Blade and is likely living in the Cedar City area with the sect’s prophet, Samuel Warren Schaffer,” Soble said in court records. “(John Coltharp) distrusts modern medicine, refusing to allow petitioner to use pain medication during childbirth.
This is a developing story.
This report is based on preliminary information provided by law enforcement and may not contain the full scope of findings.
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