A gutsy Utah dad avoided every parent’s worst nightmare when he snatched his five-year-old daughter from a home intruder’s clutches – but now refuses to take any credit because he thinks the heroic save was the work of God.
Aaron Edson and his wife, Stephanie, were jolted awake about 4:30 a.m. on Nov. 7 by noises in their suburban Salt Lake City home. The wife heard the front door open and sent her husband dashing down the stairs to see what was wrong.
“When I got to the end of the driveway, I saw a man that I had never seen before in my life,” Aaron said about the horrifying moment of seeing his daughter, Lainey, in the intruder’s arms.
Aaron, a former college football player, said his first instinct was to level the guy, but then something came over him – something he describes as “divine intervention.”
Instead, he calmly approached the man and said, “I want to help you, but you can’t take her with you.”
He believes that soothed the man, who said, “I’m in trouble and if I have her with me, they won’t kill me,” before handing the girl over and running away.
Aaron later said if he’d yelled at the man, “something horrible would have happened.”
“My thoughts were not my normal thoughts and normal way of dealing,” he said. “I was overcome with something I believe to be divine intervention.”
Police said the intruder, Troy Morley, 48, found Lainey asleep in her bed. He woke Lainey up, and told her, “Excuse me, I need to get some more sleep.” He asked the little girl for directions to a church before sweeping her up and bolting.
After Morley ran off, Stephanie called 911, and cops found him 45 minutes later in a nearby home’s basement.
Aaron refuses to take any credit for saving his daughter. “I believe it was God that saved her,” he said. “He gave me the presence of mind to have the right attitude in the situation and brought her home.”
