SALT LAKE CITY -- It was only when prosecutors had more than one case in front of them that connections started coming together in the arrest of known-GOP political advocate Gregory Peterson.
Allegations came out as early as May of last year when Peterson's alleged victim says she was raped at his cabin in Wasatch County. [Further details in the case CLICK HERE]
One force acting against this investigation: geography.
The first alleged victim described a kidnapping and a series of assaults that started in Draper and ended in Wasatch county. In July, the second alleged victim describes a three-day ordeal from Sandy to Wasatch County to Lewiston, Utah. That same woman described another attack in Millcreek Township, also in July.
Then December, a third woman reported a crime in West Jordan and the fourth reported an assault in Salt Lake City in April of this year.
With all the different locations, each law enforcement jurisdiction was working on a case that was not connected between each other until discovered recently.
"If we did not have the luxury of putting all these cases together side-by-side and looking at the facts of those cases, those could very easily be missed in isolation," said Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill.
Isolation is what Alana Kindness with the Utah Coalition Against Sexual Assault says victims believe they are in after being assaulted.
"Unfortunately, very often the victim thinks that their the only one that this happens to as well. And the techniques that a perpetrator uses are designed to make a victim doubt themselves," said Kindness.
Kindness says they are trying to create a network to help get such information available to law enforcement.
"Right now, there's no automatic way to get the information out," said Kindness.
