SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – A father and son who lured a woman and her four teenage daughters to a Utah house and tied them up in the basement before the victims escaped were paranoid after using methamphetamine, police said Thursday as a two-state manhunt for the suspects dragged into a third day.
Investigators believe Flint Wayne Harrison, 51, and his son, Dereck James “DJ” Harrison, 22, had been using the drug heavily over the last few days and gotten the false idea that the mother had reported them to authorities, Centerville police Lt. Von Steenblik said.
The younger Harrison was a close friend of the woman’s family who often came over for dinner or picked the girls up from school. The teens, aged 13 to 18, had known him for several years.
“They kind of considered him like a stepbrother,” Steenblik said.
When they first saw duct tape and zip ties laid out in the basement Tuesday, they thought the whole thing was a joke, he said.