(Photo: Salt Lake County Jail)
WEST VALLEY CITY – A West Valley man is booked on 23 counts of child sex abuse and investigators think he could have been victimizing children for more than a decade. The question is, are there any other victims who have not come forward?
The case took a long time to put together. West Valley City Police got a letter from one of the reported victims who claimed David Williams abused her. As the investigation continued, police learned the problem was much worse than previously thought.
“[The detective] worked very hard to uncover, layer by layer, multiple cases of abuse that are alleged to have been perpetrated at the hands of Mr. Williams,” says West Valley City Spokesperson Roxeanne Vainuku.
The main investigator reportedly learned the victims were all between the ages of four and 12, and the abuse happened between 1983 and 1997.
“She was able to come up with a total of seven people who we believe were victimized by Mr. Williams at this time,” she says, adding, “The victims that we have discovered, so far, are family members of Mr. Williams and people who lived near his house. What we don’t know is if there are other victims out there.”
Vainuku says they don’t have any evidence that proves there are more victims out there, but, given the amount of people they’ve found and the span of years in which the abuse happened, she says more victims are a possibility. She’s encouraging anyone who believes they may have been abused by Williams to come forward, and it doesn’t matter how long ago it may have occurred.
“We want to know about it. We want them to know they have a place to come, and we have a person to listen to them,” she says.