After a five-day search, Madelyn Allen, a 19-year-old student at Snow College, was rescued from the Loa, Utah, home of Brent Brown, 39, on Saturday.
Law enforcement officials arrested 39-year-old Brent Brown in connection with the disappearance of Madelyn Allen, a 19-year-old Snow College student from Ephraim. He now faces charges of obstruction of justice, aggravated kidnapping, rape, and object rape.
According to a probable cause affidavit, Brent Brown took away Allen’s wallet and phone and tied her up while he was at work, later claiming that it was part of kidnapping role-play.
During a press conference on Saturday night, Allen’s parents recounted how they fell to their knees after getting a call from the police, telling them their daughter has been found alive.
Allen met Brown in a group chat on the messaging app KIK and agreed to have him pick her up in Ephraim on December 13, the affidavit stated.
Snow College security video showed Allen leaving her dormitory after 9.20pm last Monday.
When Allen failed to return home the next morning, her roommates filed a missing person report, reported The Salt Lake City Tribune.
While police were looking for Allen, she was at Brown’s home in Loa, nearly 90 miles away, where, according to the court records, the relationship between the college student and her date became non-consensual and violent.
The affidavit stated that Brown took away Allen’s Phone, allowing her only to text her family the words ‘I love you’ on December 14 – a message that alarmed her parents and siblings, prompting them to go to the authorities.
Brown tied up Allen while he was at work, took away her wallet, and threatened to ‘come after her family and sister’ if she were to tell anyone about him.
After Brown learned that police were looking for Allen, he threw away her phone, but not before the authorities were able to use cellphone tower data associated with her December 14 text message to track her to Loa.
As police officers were scouring the small town of 500 inhabitants, according to the affidavit, they spotted a petite woman with blonde hair in the basement of one residence.
When police knocked on the door, asking about Allen, the man who answered – later identified as Brown – told them he was alone in the house and refused to let them in, the documents stated.
Officials obtained a search warrant and entered the home on Saturday, where they located a Snow College identification card belonging to the missing student. During a subsequent search of the residence, police found Allen alive in the coal room in the cellar, naked and covered in coal.
The affidavit stated that police officers found Brown to be in possession of a gun and three knives, reported Gephardt Daily.
Under questioning, Brown admitted to keeping Allen tied up to prevent her from leaving, taking away her phone, and threatening Allen’s family, but he claimed it was part of a sexual role play involving a kidnapping scenario, according to KSL-TV.
Authorities, however, said that Allen was being held against her will.
According to the affidavit, Allen told police she did not want to have sex with Brown, but she did not leave because he knew her family’s address and had made threats against them.
She said that Brown told her he had mailed her phone to the southern border so that nobody could find her, and later claimed that police had stopped looking for her.
Following her dramatic rescue, the 19-year-old was taken to a hospital for a checkup, after which she was reunited with her family.
During a press conference on Saturday announcing Allen’s rescue, her parents, Jonathan and Taunya, spoke of their gratitude and relief at having their daughter back,
‘We got the phone call and [the police chief] said, “I have her.” We dropped to our knees,’ Jonathan Allen, said. ‘We were so grateful, elated. We couldn’t describe the feelings that we had as we embraced each other.’
Her uncle, Jacob Allen said Madelyn has been through a ‘dangerous and traumatic’ ordeal, but she is a ‘fighter’ and a survivor.
On Sunday, Allen’s family held two candlelight vigils as part of ‘gatherings of gratitude’ to celebrate her rescue.
