Brent Brown: Everything we know about man arrested for allegedly kidnapping student found alive in coal bunker
Suspect claims abduction was part of sexual role-play scenario
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Brent Neil Brown has been arrested on suspicion of kidnapping 19-year-old college student Madelyn Allen in Utah.
Here’s everything we know about the 39-year-old.
The possible charges
While Mr Brown has not yet officially been charged with a crime, he was arrested on suspicion of obstruction of justice, aggravated kidnapping, rape, and object rape after Ms Allen was found alive in the basement coal room of Mr Brown’s house five days after she went missing on Monday.
A judge decided on Sunday afternoon that Mr Brown will be jailed without bail, Fox 13 reported.
The events leading to Brown’s arrest
Madelyn Allen vanished on Monday when she was seen leaving her dorm at Snow College in Ephraim in central Utah at around 9.22pm.
According to a probable cause affidavit filed on Sunday in the 6th District Court in Manti, Ms Allen first met Mr Brown in a group chat on the messaging app KIK, and they decided that he would pick her up on 13 December.
KSL reported that Mr Brown told police that they first met in a bondage group chat.
Surveillance footage from Snow College shows Ms Allen leaving her dorm on Monday night. Her roommates reported her missing when she didn’t come back the following day. Legal filings state that Ms Allen’s relationship with Mr Brown became violent and nonconsensual over the subsequent days.
He reportedly took her phone, only letting her text her family once to say “I love you” early on 14 December. The text alarmed her family, leading to the contacting law enforcement.
Legal filings also state that he tied her up while he was at work, discarded her phone when he found out that law enforcement was searching for her, took her wallet, and “threatened her, saying if she left or told anyone about him, he would come after her family and sister”.
KSL-TV reported that Mr Brown admitted to police that he had tied up Ms Allen to stop her from leaving, as well as taking her phone and threatening her family, but he claimed it was a part of a sexual role-play scenario.
But authorities say Ms Allen was being held against her will. The affidavit states that Ms Allen told police that she didn’t want to have sex with Mr Brown, but that she didn’t leave because he had threatened her family and knew where they lived.
She reportedly added that Mr Brown had told her that he had mailed her phone to the southern border and that the police had stopped looking for her.
Authorities on the local, state, and federal level all took part in the search. Police used cellphone towers to locate Ms Allen in Loa, a small town south of Ephraim.
Police searched the town, which has around 500 residents, and spotted a person with light hair and a small build in the basement of a home on Main Street.
Mr Brown opened the door and told police that he was alone in the home. He wouldn’t allow police to search the home without the permission of the owners – his parents. They were contacted and gave their permission for the home to be searched.
Officers found Ms Allen’s Snow College ID, a gun in an open suitcase, along with clothes that appeared to belong to Ms Allen. Mr Brown was arrested when the woman’s ID was found. When he was searched, police found that he was in possession of three knives, ABC4 reported.
Legal filings state police found Ms Allen in the basement coal storage room, naked and covered in coal, which Mr Brown later claimed was a part of the kidnapping role-play.
What police have said about Brown
Snow College Police Chief Derek Walk told reporters on Sunday: “We don’t have a lot of information about him. We met him for the first time last night. We don’t know how extensive his relationship or her knowledge of him is thus far.”
“This is an ongoing investigation,” he added. “There are certain aspects we are still digging into and trying to understand fully.”