A Utah man who was rescued with his three children, ages 2, 4 and 8, after a cold and treacherous hike through mountainous terrain last month faces child abuse charges over forcing them to endure the ordeal, the authorities said.
The man, Micah Smith, 31, was indicted on three counts of child torture and three counts of aggravated child abuse, the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release on Wednesday. The charges are first-degree felonies.
Mr. Smith first made headlines in October when search-and-rescue crews found him with his 8-year-old daughter, and his two sons, 2 and 4, on Oct. 12, a day after they had been reported as overdue hikers at Big Cottonwood Canyon, according to the sheriff’s office.
The canyon, which offers popular but tough hiking trails, is roughly 15 miles southeast of Salt Lake City.
Initially, some news reports hailed the rescue and the father’s efforts to keep the children alive in unforgiving conditions. There was even a GoFundMe fund-raiser, where Mr. Smith was said to have suffered frostbite in trying to keep the children safe, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.
Two of the children were in critical condition after they were found, the sheriff’s office said after the rescue, and one was in stable condition. Mr. Smith was in fair condition, the statement said.
It was unclear on Saturday whether Mr. Smith had a lawyer. An online arrest record for him shows that he was taken into custody on Tuesday.
District Attorney Sim Gill of Salt Lake City said during a news conference that the children were told to “march on” despite being afraid and that the path Mr. Smith took, known as the Broad Fork Trail, was “not an easy hike that you would take a child upon.”
Mr. Gill also said that the children discussed climbing over “rocks that were slipping” and having to hold onto vegetation as they were trying to hike.
The district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.
The children were discovered in dismal conditions, the local news channel ABC4 reported, citing the police.
The 8-year-old girl was found “alongside a boulder with ‘a few sticks stacked against it,’” and the 2-year-old boy was under his 4-year-old brother, who was exposed and unconscious, according to the news report.
The news station also reported that Mr. Smith’s daughter can be heard in a video that was found on his phone asking, “Are we going to freeze to death, daddy?”
The local news channel KSL reported that prosecutors said they believed Mr. Smith’s behavior was “clearly spiraling,” adding that he had previously “expressed suicidal ideations.”
Georgia Gee contributed research.
Aimee Ortiz covers breaking news and other topics.
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