Arrest coming in teen's death

BOUNTIFUL — Police said they plan to arrest a convicted sex offender who struck up a friendship with a 16-year-old girl and may have played a role in her death.

Search dogs found the body of Samantha Mikesell on Thursday morning in Mueller Park Canyon. Davis County prosecutors today will begin screening charges against Walter White, 38, who remains under armed guard at Lakeview Hospital, where he has been involuntarily committed for psychiatric evaluation.

"We'll arrest him on obstruction of justice and desecration of a corpse at the very least," Bountiful Police Lt. Steve Gray said. "That's our expectation."

Police said the pair had some sort of friendship after she met him through his son and may have corresponded on the Internet. The man told police he picked up the teenager on Sunday afternoon from her job at Dee's Restaurant, in Bountiful.

"He just said on Sunday they went on a hike in Mueller Park Canyon," Bountiful police detective Paul Cardall said. Mikesell was reported missing by her parents late Sunday.

On Tuesday, a Davis County sheriff's deputy spotted a man officers later identified as White walking alone in the foothills. He had scratches on his body and was disoriented. The deputy took him to Lakeview Hospital, where he was treated and released.

"He was very, very weird. He looked like he hadn't slept in a few nights," said Deborah Jule, who manages the Woods Cross apartments where the man lives. She said when she went to collect his rent on Wednesday, she noticed the scratches all over his face and described his demeanor as extremely odd.

"He was really out of it," she said.

Officers investigating the disappearance of Mikesell got White's name from her family, who did not know he is a registered sex offender. When Cardall went to the man's Woods Cross apartment, he noticed the cuts and scratches.

"He's saying he cannot remember what happened," Cardall said. Police seized a computer and a mattress from the apartment as part of their investigation.

In subsequent interviews with investigators, Gray said detectives learned the pair had been taking imipramine, an anti-depressant.

"He said he took some pills, he drank some Jim Beam (whiskey). She took some pills," Gray said. "He woke up. She didn't."