An axe-wielding man who Salt Lake City police say was “watching and loving” an elderly woman from a afar was arrested after he allegedly entered her apartment to ask her on a date.
After cops responded to an urgent welfare check at the women’s home, Chadwell Clement Smith, 34, was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping, burglary, possession of a controlled substance, and prohibited possession of a dangerous weapon, according to Fox13.
Around 2 a.m., the woman woke up to use the bathroom and let her dog out, according to a police report seen by the outlet. While she was in the bathroom, she heard a voice say “hello” at her front door, which she had reportedly left slightly open.
When she left the bathroom, she allegedly found Smith standing in her apartment with an axe. The woman claims he also had brought a knife into the house but had placed it on top of her refrigerator.
When questioned, Smith reportedly told the officers that he saw the woman’s door open and decided to enter “thinking that this was his shot.”
After the greeting, Smith allegedly hugged the woman and instructed her to sit down, at which point police say he began rubbing her legs and feet, despite protests to stop. At that point, Smith allegedly told her that he’d been “watching and loving her” for half a year, and told her he wanted to ask her out, Fox13 reports.
He also told the woman that “he was going to give her the time of her life,” according to ABC 4, citing the police report.
At one point, he went into her bathroom and took a shower.
When officers arrived at the house, they allegedly found Smith lounging shirtless in the woman’s bed.
Smith allegedly revealed an elaborate plan to romance the woman.
“He told me that his intention was to take her out on a date and to get an Uber up near the University of Utah underneath a tree and was intending on kissing her there and ‘feeling out’ the situation and informed me that he would want to have sex with the victim prior to a supposed marriage,” the arresting officer wrote in the police report, seen by ABC4.
Smith reportedly later admitted that he was really was planning to take the woman to an underground construction site.
Authorities also asked him why he was entering people’s homes in the middle of the night with an axe and a knife. He reportedly said he carried them for self-defense. Police believe the suspect may have “escalated the situation” if they had not responded, according to a report seen by ABC4.
Smith was arrested and was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail, where he is being held without bail.
