Woman In Daybreak Assault Claim May Face Charges For False Report

SOUTH JORDAN, Utah – Detectives said a woman fabricated a story about a door-to-door salesman forcing his way into a South Jordan home and sexually assaulting her.

Officials with the South Jordan Police Department said the false report came in Sunday afternoon.

A woman claimed that a man knocked on the front door of the home in the Daybreak community, and that she told him she wasn’t interested.

She reported to detectives that the man then came to the back door and got inside the home.

Police said once they reviewed surveillance video showing the front and side of the home on Blackshear Drive that the woman’s story started to unravel.

“I’m very confident in saying that the salesperson didn’t come to the house on the front door or down the driveway,” said Lt. Matt Pennington. “We know that for certain because the video shows it. We have her leaving the home. We have her returning to the home. We have our officers showing up at the home and nobody in between that time.”

Detectives returned to the home Tuesday afternoon to gather more evidence and talk with the woman. That was when they said the woman confessed to having made the whole story up.

Police hoped residents in the community learn of the false report, and return to feeling safe. Pennington said residents posted about the woman’s claims on social media and that they quickly spread and caused “pandemonium” in the Daybreak neighborhood.

“We don’t want to create unnecessary fear in the community,” he said. “In this case, somebody else put it out and so we want to make sure the community now knows we’ve disproven that there wasn’t a salesperson at the house that day. We do get salespeople around the community, and very rarely do we have issues with them.”

Detectives spent a lot of hours and resources investigating the alleged assault and processing the home for forensic evidence. Pennington said the case will now be refereed to prosecutors to be screened for possible charges.