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Police arrest suspect in Roy toddler’s 2016 death

By Mark Shenefelt - | Jan 13, 2022

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ROY — Roy police and U.S. marshals arrested a Salt Lake City man Wednesday on suspicion of aggravated murder in the 2016 death of a 22-month-old girl in Roy.

Police Capt. Danny Hammon said Thursday detectives recently presented additional evidence to the Weber County Attorney’s Office to demonstrate probable cause to arrest Jordan Koji Sasaki, 27.

Detectives called on the Marshals Service’s Violent Fugitive Apprehension Team to help in serving the arrest warrant on Sasaki in Salt Lake County. As police moved in to make the arrest, Sasaki fled, crashing his car into a marshal’s vehicle, Hammon said. He then surrendered.

Sasaki was booked into the Weber County Jail in Ogden on suspicion of first-degree felony aggravated murder and second-degree felony obstruction of justice.

Police and paramedics were called to a residence near 500 South and 3100 West in Roy on Oct. 10, 2016, where Genesis McCall was found dead. Hammon said three other people lived in the home — Sasaki, the girl’s mother and a man who had taken in the woman, who was a struggling single mother. Sasaki was her boyfriend.

The mother moved to New York and Sasaki lived in Wyoming for a time before moving to Salt Lake County, Hammon said.

“Detectives have been working on that case every single year, trying to freshen it up and find probable cause,” Hammon said. “About a month ago, we were able to get the county attorney to agree to move forward with charging. The detectives working that case never gave up on finding out who killed her.”

Formal charges had not yet been filed in 2nd District Court by late Thursday morning. Efforts to contact County Attorney Christopher Allred were not immediately successful.

Karra Porter, a co-founder of the nonprofit Utah Cold Case Coalition, said her group began looking into the McCall case a few years ago.

“We have spent time trying to locate witnesses and others with information and were able to do that and provided that to law enforcement,” Porter said. She said the group also tracked Sasaki’s movements.

“We went public a year or so back appealing to the suspect to talk to a lawyer and come forward voluntarily rather than make law enforcement go through an arrest,” Porter said. “This arrest is what we expected to happen, and we are glad the police have stayed with this, and we’re glad we were able to provide information and work momentum in the case.”

At least 10 cold cases in Utah and other states have been solved in part with information the 5-year-old coalition, based in Salt Lake City, has uncovered, Porter said.

The coalition’s tip line is 385-258-3313.

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