Heroic dad rescues 5-year-old daughter from the clutches of kidnapper who had snatched her from her bed
A heroic Utah step-father has rescued his five-year-old step-daughter from the clutches of a brazen kidnapper who had snatched her from her own bed in the middle of the night.
The man awoke to find Troy Morley, 46, carrying his daughter across his front lawn at 4.30 this morning in quiet Sandy, Utah, police say.
'What are you doing, that’s my daughter, you’re not taking her!' the father screamed.
Morley, who is 5-foot-11 and 250lbs, put the girl down without struggle. He fled and was eventually caught in another house after a police canine bit him on the shoulder.
On Friday night, the 911 call made by the girl's mother was released by KSL.com.
In the footage, the terrified woman can be heard telling the dispatcher: 'There was a man in my home and he took my five-year-old daughter.
'And I happened to wake up and he had my daughter outside, and my husband ran out there and got him. But he took my five-year-old daughter.'
The family say that they've never seen Morley before and they have no idea what he planned to do with the little girl if he had escaped with her.
Incident has evoked haunting echoes of when 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart was snatched out of her Salt Lake City bedroom in 2002. She was held captive for nine months by Mormon street preacher Brian David Mitchell before she was found and rescued.
The suspect in this case entered the home through an unlocked side door in the middle-class suburb south of Salt Lake City, Police Sergeant Dean Carriger said.
The intruder was in the family's basement rummaging through their belongings when he came upon the girl sleeping in her bedroom, Carriger said.
The suspect took her out of bed and carried her upstairs. The father told police that he awoke to the sound of creaking stairs and the front door being unlocked and opened.
Neighbors told the Deseret News that they heard the girl screaming 'No! No! No!' as Morley tried to carry her away.
After Morley fled, officers set up a perimeter, and with the help of police dogs, launched a search. The suspect went into a second home, where the residents heard him and called police.
Police captured Morley, shirtless, outside that second home thanks to a police dog that bit the suspect in the upper shoulder, Carriger said.
Police don't know yet why the suspect was in the house, whether he knew the girl was there when he broke in or if he had a planned to take her, Carriger said.
Morley's last known address was in Roy, Utah, 45 miles north of Sandy. He has two two drunk driving arrests from 2009 and 2011 but no other significant Utah criminal history, the Deseret News reports.
He has been through two divorces in the last four years - once in 2010 and the second was finalized just last month after he filed for divorce in June.
Morley is still at the hospital receiving medical treatment for the dog bite but is expected to be arrested later Friday and booked on charges of child kidnapping and burglary.
Carriger said the family is doing pretty well considering what happened. They have declined to speak to reporters.
'It obviously was a very scary, traumatic situation,' Carriger said. 'The sanctity of our home is huge and for somebody to enter that and grab your child, it's got to be one of the worst nightmares a parent could face. . . If those parents were not awakened to go out and investigate, he could have easily left undetected with the girl.'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2825665/Dad-confronts-kidnapper-saves-5-year-old-daughter.html 
