An ex-Utah County deputy’s confession to Mormon leaders led to his arrest for child molestation 10 years later - The Salt Lake Tribune

Two young women told investigators in Mesa, Ariz., that one of the department’s former officers had groped and sexually assaulted them 11 years earlier at sleepovers.

The handwritten report from 1995 doesn’t explain the steps detectives took next, but within months, the case went dormant. An investigator wrote that there was scant evidence and no likelihood that Officer Gerald Salcido would ever be convicted.

Years went by.

Salcido moved to Utah, where he worked as a Provo officer for 12 years and then another decade as a deputy with the Utah County Sheriff’s Office.

While he was working for Provo, he allegedly confessed to his crimes — not to police, but to his wife and his Mormon bishop. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints excommunicated Salcido in 2006, but it appears church officials never told investigators about the confession.

Only a dozen years later, when the mother of one of the victims complained to police in Arizona, did Salcido end up arrested and charged with molestation. That happened this January.

A recently obtained police report sheds light on the role religious leaders played in this on-again, off-again investigation that has left the victims frustrated, yet hopeful the man they say molested them some 30 years ago may yet face a prison sentence.

An ex-Utah County deputy’s confession to Mormon leaders led to his arrest for child molestation 10 years later - The Salt Lake Tribune