Man charged in child-bride sodomy case

CASTRO VALLEY » A Castro Valley man charged in Utah with child sodomy after joining a polygamist doomsday cult he found on Facebook has negotiated with a Utah prosecutor to return there on his own and be arrested.

Robert Shane Roe, 34, who lives near the Crow Canyon Regional Recreation Area in Castro Valley, is being allowed to return to Sanpete County, Utah, under an agreement reached with his lawyer, Sanpete County Attorney Kevin Daniels said Tuesday. Roe was charged last week as part of an investigation of a cult where girls as young as 4-years-old were taken as wives by the group’s leaders.

Roe allegedly took a 5-year-old “spiritual wife” last year when he became part of a group deep in the Utah desert called the Knights of the Crystal Blade based on arcane Mormon ideas long abandoned by the mainstream church.

Daniels said Roe has no known history of pedophila other than the current charges and that he is confident he will return to face the charges. He will likely appear in court next week, the prosecutor said.

“He’s going to go to prison for a very long time,” Daniels said. Public records show Roe has a California security guard license and a permit to carry a firearm. Daniels said the Knights of the Crystal Blade “had guns

“... Robert Roe took (the 5-year-old) to a hotel for two days and that he married her and that when she saw him around her, he was kissing her on the mouth.” — John Coltharp’s ex-wife

and they were not afraid to use them.” Other members were arrested without a firefight, he said.

Roe “became radicalized over the internet,” Daniels said. ”This is a very bizarre story. ” Roe has admitted traveling to group’s compound of storage trailers last summer, where he was married to the young girl under the group’s beliefs.

Daniels said Roe has denied the sodomy allegations.

A woman whose ex-husband is charged in the case said she still wonders if she could have spared the four young girls the alleged sexual abuse they suffered at the suspects’ hands.

“I’ve battled with guilt,” the woman said in an interview with the Bay Area News Group, who is not naming her because her children are thought to be victims of a crime in the shockingly disturbing case.

Authorities say Roe, the woman’s ex-husband, John Coltharp, and Samuel W. Shaffe were all part of a group, which called for marrying children. Each man secretly married two girls between the ages of 4 and 8, both relatives of the other, according to court documents.

Though investigators knew previously that Roe was involved in the group, the girl only recently revealed what happened when she was alone with him. Shaffer was sentenced last month to up to life in prison after pleading guilty to child rape and abuse charges.

Coltharp has pleaded not guilty to sodomy and child bigamy charges. He is slated to be back in court Wednesday in Manti, Utah.

Shaffer and Coltharp were charged after sheriff’s deputies descended on a makeshift compound made out of shipping containers in the southern Utah desert about 275 miles south of Salt Lake City. Authorities arrived with helicopters and dogs in December, after Coltharp’s ex-wife reported them missing, along with two of her sons.

“I was terrified the whole time they were gone,” Coltharp’s ex-wife said, “but everyone convinced me, ‘Oh, they’re in a house somewhere. John is just mad at you. He doesn’t want to share.’ “

The woman said she ended her relationship with Coltharp in 2015 because she could no longer endure his unceasing conspiracy theories and the existential dread they instilled in her. Out of economic necessity, the woman said she was forced to continue sharing the same apartment where they lived with their two sons and two daughters. Then in May, he announced he no longer had a job, took the children and disappeared.

“If I had just let him keep talking about that stuff maybe I would’ve known what he was into,” she continued. “He just went downhill and his beliefs were completely derailed when he no longer had a responsible adult keeping him in check.”

The men had taken the children to the compound months before in preparation for an apocalypse or in hopes of gaining followers, authorities said.

The boys were found at the compound, but it took police another day to find the girls hidden in barrels and a rat-infested trailer.

Shaffer said at his sentencing that he put the girls in the containers to protect them from the winter weather, and he was glad that the girl spoke out.

Coltharp and Shaffer initially met in a Facebook discussion group relating to the 1890 decision to abandon polygamy by the mainstream Mormon church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said Daniels.

Some fundamentalist Mormons believe that decision took the religion too far from its original beliefs.

According to Coltharps ex-wife, her oldest daughter told her the marriage ceremony included sex because ”that’s what happened to her.”

“She said that Robert Roe took (the 5-year-old) to a hotel for two days and that he married her and that when she saw him around her, he was kissing her on the mouth,” the exwife said.

Though the group espoused polygamous intentions, none of the men had multiple adult wives, said Daniels, adding that the followers also believed that Chinese and Muslim people were planning to come to take over the United States, Daniels said.

Two other followers who are cooperating with investigators could be charged at a later date with obstruction of justice, but they aren’t suspected of committing any sexual crimes, he said.

Daniels called Shaffer, Coltharp and Roe “pedophiles cloaking themselves in the robes of religious freedom.”

The boys, ages 6 and 7, were also physically and emotionally abused, according to Coltharp’s exwife. They were often marched into the forest and forced to find their way back using their footprints, she said.

Her children are in therapy, she said, and have “exceeded expectations so far.”

“There’s still a lot,” she said. “They mention John and Sam every day. But they hate them. They want them to suffer like they did. … They know what was happening was wrong.”

She is also learning to let go of the guilt that still grips her.