Utah teacher who was helping 'distraught' 5-year-old autistic child get home after school charged with kidnapping
A teacher from Utah who claimed to help a five-year-old get home safely after noticing the child was "sobbing uncontrollably" before wandering off school premises is now facing kidnapping charges.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, November 21, Amy Louise Martz said she "did not kidnap a child." She added, "I followed a clearly distraught child as she left the school grounds. I felt she was not safe traveling alone."
The 49-year-old teacher at Fox Hollow Elementary School was charged with the felony on Monday, November 18, after a woman reported in early September that her autistic five-year-old daughter never made it home, according to a Daily Beast report.
According to Martz's attorney, the whole case is a misunderstanding owing to a language barrier, considering the five-year-old is autistic and speaks Spanish at home.
Martz was charged by authorities after she allegedly took an unauthorized walk with the child off school property. However, the teacher said she had spent most of the time trying to reach the child's parents.
According to her, the little girl shook her head when she first took her to the bus stop and later to the parent pick up spot.
“At each fork in the road, I stopped and said, 'Which way home?' She would point confidently and said, 'This way home'," Martz was quoted as saying by Deseret News. However, she claimed to soon realize "this cute girl did not know where she was going".
Authorities said the walk apparently lasted about 40 minutes and took the girl more than a half-mile away from school grounds. Martz and the girl were eventually brought back to campus by another teacher who spotted them.
Martz was seen in the school's surveillance footage "walking hand-in-hand" with the girl on the premises.
According to the embattled teacher, she had left her cellphone at school as she didn't intend to be gone for so long. She then allegedly borrowed a phone from a neighborhood resident and called the school.
The 24-year-old teacher said she had tried to explain her intentions to the student's parents. However, they were not "understanding (her) good intentions and the safety (she) had provided" owing to an apparent language barrier.
Martz said she found out about the child kidnapping charges against her only after being contacted by the media. She immediately turned herself in to the police and posted bail after being booked into the county jail. Martz now faces up to 15 years to life in prison if convicted.
"I had no intent to interfere with the child's trip home. I was providing safety to what I felt was a vulnerable child because she was distraught. I did not learn until later that she had autism," Martz told reporters on Thursday, saying she was "acting out of compassion" for the child.
"It's a sad commentary on our society when educators who responsibly help children are disciplined and charged with crimes," Martz said. "I plead with the prosecutor to drop the charges against me."