(KCPW News) Two weeks after 6-year-old Sierra Newbold was taken from her home, sexually assaulted and drowned in a nearby canal, a suspect has been charged in the case. Yesterday, Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill along with West Jordan Police announced 41-year-old Terry Lee Black, a neighbor of the Newbold family, was charged with the crime. West Jordan Police Chief Douglas Diamond says Black committed a vehicle theft and bank robbery days after the murder, which helped lead to his arrest.
“We got a call about a vehicle theft June 29th. The person that the vehicle was stolen had to be at work; she went to work and her manager went to the bank and saw her car there. So, she confronts the suspect in the car as he comes out of the bank,” he said.
Diamond says he believes it was divine intervention that led to Black’s arrest. When responding to the bank robbery, he notes the detective who led the investigation noticed soot on the suspect’s clothing that looked like it may have come from the field where Newbold’s clothing was found.
“The hair stood up on the back of his neck, he knew he needed to come to the scene,” says Diamond. “As we pulled out and identified where this suspect lived, it was in very close proximity to the homicide scene and so we just started pulling out and connecting dots and pulling little pieces here and there and putting those pieces together, so that we were able to get a warrant to collect his DNA.
Black is being held in the Salt Lake County Jail. His bail is set at $2 million.
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