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Mountain Home News

Missing teen girl found in Utah; man arrested

Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Jasmine N. Lewis

The Elmore County Sheriff's Office has located a missing 14-year-old Hammett girl, Jasmine N. Lewis, in Green River, Utah.

She was found unharmed but a Mountain Home man, Eugene M. Peters, 51, was arrested in connection with her disappearance by the Emery County (Utah) Sheriff's Office and the Utah Highway Patrol.

Peters is currently in custody at the Emery County Sheriff's Office jail, facing several pending felony charges in Utah.

During the investigation Elmore County Sheriff's Office detectives worked with the Emery County Sheriff's Office and The Unified Police Department in Salt Lake City, Utah, by identifying and arresting Peters in connection with Lewis' departure from Hammett on July 5.

The investigation continues to be investigated by all the cooperating law enforcement agencies involved in working the case, along with the assistance of the Boise field office of The Federal Bureau of Investigation.

At the present time, authorities believe Lewis left the area willingly, but are waiting to interview her when she is returned to Elmore County to learn more about the circumstances by which she left the area and wound up in Utah. After facing a scheduled hearing in juvenile court in Emery County this Wednesday or Thursday, she is expected to be returned here this weekend. She was originally listed as a runaway after she disappeared, a status offense.

Elmore County Sheriff's Office officials said the case remains under investigation and no further information can be released at this time.

But a check by the Mountain Home News shows that, according to Idaho State Police records, Peters was convicted on Oct. 15, 1987, of lewd conduct with a child under age 16. As of last month, those records indicate he had been compliant with all sex offender registration requirements.

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  • hopefully there is alot of jail time involved

    -- Posted by biggin9900 on Wed, Jul 13, 2011, at 1:34 PM

  • http://www.ktvb.com/news/crime/Idaho-sex-offender-arrested-in-Utah-125600898.htm...

    -- Posted by just1 on Fri, Jul 15, 2011, at 12:31 AM

  • Well If The girl left with Peters willingly, The girl needs to be charged as well. Like the old saying goes "it takes two to tango" The girl was in the wrong, and peters was defiantly in the wrong. The girl really needs some professional help, it is girls like that who are ignorant that will probably end up pregnant and on welfare and us tax payers will have to pay for her ignorance, but knowing our WONDERFUL government the girl will get off Scott-free.

    -- Posted by lttlmssvxn on Sun, Jul 17, 2011, at 12:14 AM

  • Okay, in response to miss vixen;

    She's 14. If a 14 year old wants to 'tango', that's still a crime for a 51 year old man, and his responsibility, not hers, to make sure it doesn't happen. When one of the people involved is a minor, or without consent, it does not take 2 to tango. It takes one to hurt, humiliate, and damage the other, sometimes irreparably. How dare you.

    He's a registered sex offender. He drives a truck for a living, and she was looking to run away. To me, it sounds like they had very different agendas, and I'm guessing hers was not to get raped and knocked up at 14 just to steal your tax dollars.

    Also, it says he took her, and that he was registered as a sex offender in the 80s. Can I please emphasize that it's only in your mind that Jasmine looked at this old man and was taken with evil, baby making, lustful thoughts? How bad does her home life have to be to want to run away badly enough to get into that guy's truck? And all you have to say is that she's going to be a drain on society if the result of her assumed rape is pregnancy.

    -- Posted by Miss on Mon, Jul 18, 2011, at 6:35 PM
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