A pre-wedding shopping trip for a 21-year-old bride ended with felony charges against her parents, who she says kidnapped her and drove her 240 miles to Colorado, trying to talk her out of the nuptials along the way and holding her until she missed the ceremony.
“I’ve never had a case quite like this,” Utah County Attorney Kay Bryson said Tuesday after charging Lemuel and Julia Redd with second-degree felony kidnapping.
Bryson said he met with the couple’s daughter, Julianna, and her now-husband, Perry Myers, before charging the parents. “It is strange that parents would go to that extent to keep an adult daughter from marrying the man that she had chosen to marry,” he said.
The Redds told their daughter they were taking her on a shopping trip Aug. 4 and then drove from Provo to Grand Junction, Colo., according to Provo police Capt. Rick Healey. Myers, 23, called police when his bride didn’t attend a pre-wedding dinner with his parents that night.
The Redds spent the night in Colorado and drove back to Provo, about 40 miles south of Salt Lake City, the next day, Healey said. They arrived after the young couple was supposed to have been married in a ceremony that day at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Temple in Salt Lake City.
Nothing to do with fiance, daughter says
“I was totally confused and manipulated,” Julianna Myers told KTVX-TV in Salt Lake City. She said she supports the charges and hopes her parents get help.
“They had their concerns, their reasoning,” she said. “Honestly I don’t understand. It had nothing to do with Perry.”
Bryson said after reviewing the police investigation it was clear a crime was committed.
The couple, both students at Brigham Young University, were married in the temple on Aug. 8, Myers said. They are expecting their first child in May.
“We were just glad the way it ended and she just came back and she was OK,” Myers said. “We’ve gone forward since then.
Lemuel Redd, 59, and Julia Redd, 56, were charged Friday and are scheduled to make an initial court appearance Oct. 26. If convicted, they could face one to 15 years in prison.
A call to a listing for Lemuel H. Redd at the address in Monticello, Utah, listed in court documents went unanswered Tuesday. No attorney for the Redds is listed in court documents.