Police: Security Video Appears to Show Suspect on Same Morning Girl Went Missing
May 28, 2019, 3:05 PM | Updated: May 29, 2019, 3:11 pm
LOGAN, Utah — Surveillance video captured by a Logan business is believed to show the whereabouts of Alex Whipple on the morning that his 5-year-old niece went missing, according to police.
Whipple, 21, has been identified by Logan Police as the suspect in the disappearance of Elizabeth Shelley, who vanished from her home sometime between 2 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. Saturday.
The owner of Western Mechanical posted the video on social media in hopes of helping in the search for little Elizabeth. The video was discovered on Monday and turned over to investigators.
The video is timestamped 6:46 a.m. and shows a pickup truck leaving the parking lot of the company located at 25 South 700 West in Logan—which is just a few blocks from Elizabeth’s home. The truck stops and waits for a man walking north on the sidewalk.
Authorities confirm they have received the video and that they believe the man is Whipple, based on his clothing and mannerisms.
The driver of the truck, an employee of Western Mechanical, also told his boss that he noticed the same man at 6:30 a.m. in an empty lot across the street. The man was running behind an abandoned train car and jumping over debris, according to the business owner.
The video appears to show that the man’s “pants are soaked from the knees down,” the business owner wrote on the video post. The driver of the truck immediately alerted his coworkers that he believed the man was acting suspicious and to keep an eye on him.
Video surveillance has already been critical in helping investigators establish a timeline for the morning Elizabeth went missing and also to verify information from tipsters, according to Logan’s police chief.
“Some of the tips we’ve received, we’ve been able to backtrack with video and we’ve been able to decide some of that information is not as accurate as we hoped,” said Chief Gary Jensen.
Police again urged residents in Logan to check their security cameras and doorbell cameras for any video of Whipple.
“If you have that ability take a look back at your system, see if you can be helpful to us,” Jensen said.
