Police: Man Stalked Woman, Entered Home & Kidnapped Baby

AMERICAN FORK, Utah – A man was arrested Tuesday after police said he entered a house and took a woman’s 1-year-old daughter.

Lt. Cameron Paul with the American Fork Police Department said officers responded to a home in the area of 350 West Main Street after 6:45 a.m. Tuesday and learned of a possible suspect in the alleged kidnapping — a man the mother claimed had been stalking her recently.

“With the help of some other agencies like Lindon Police Department and Pleasant Grove Police Department, we were able to send officers over to the address of this male,” Paul said. “As soon as officers arrived, they actually located the child at the residence.”

American Fork Police say a woman claims this man had stalked her on multiple prior occasions. This morning, officers say he entered the woman’s home through a back door and took her 1-year-old baby. UPDATE tonight @KSL5TV at 10p #KSLTV #Utah pic.twitter.com/n9Ah0uY1uq

— Andrew Adams (@AndrewAdamsKSL) February 10, 2021

Paul said as officers were on the way to the home in Lindon, a relative of the man actually called 911 after spotting the baby in the yard.

According to a probable cause statement, the family member woke up to the sound of a baby crying, looked outside and saw the child laying on the ground in a pajama onesie while the man, identified by police as 25-year-old Aaron Castro, was by his car — which had multiple doors open.

“The family was helpful,” Paul said. “They definitely understood the gravity of the situation and nobody wants to see a child taken from a home. They did a great job helping us not only get the child into our custody but also eventually get the child back with the family as well.”

According to a jail booking statement, Castro told officers during an interview he had been at the recreation center in Pleasant Grove during the time of the abduction and simply found the baby in the driveway when he returned home.

Police did not find any video showing Castro at or inside the recreation center, officers wrote.

Paul said surveillance video placed Castro’s car in the neighborhood of the alleged abduction around the time that it happened. Additional video sources, police said, appeared to show Castro near his Lindon home leaving before the incident and returning afterward.

Investigators said Castro and the victim had known each other but did not specify the nature of the relationship.

“Most recently there was some suspicious and concerning behavior on behalf of the male that led her to be a little bit more vigilant, a little bit more worried than she had been in the past,” Paul said. “There had been some claims that somebody had been over to the house possibly looking into windows of the home and doing some other things that were suspicious for sure.”

Paul said officers found the baby in less than 40 minutes from when the call came into dispatch.

“We were in the process of prepping an AMBER Alert, we had already sent out some attempts-to-locate and were working on sending those statewide,” Paul said. “This is definitely a call that no agency wants to take, no agency wants to face and there is a big sense of urgency, so we were in the process of doing all those things and luckily we were able to find the child at the suspect’s residence.”

The booking statement noted that the baby was transported to the hospital after appearing “lethargic” at the home in Lindon, but did not have any observable injuries and was eventually released to her family.

According to the jail documents, both Castro’s family and the mother of the baby said Castro had a history of mental illness including schizophrenia. Officers wrote that they also learned that he had previously been involuntarily committed to a hospital for mental illness.

Castro was booked into the Utah County Jail Tuesday on suspicion of felony child kidnapping and burglary and misdemeanor child abuse/neglect and was being held without bail.