MIDVALE, Utah (ABC 4 News) - The finishing touches are being put on a documentary about a horrible crime that happened in the Salt Lake Valley 10 years ago.
At the time, Charlotte Hansen was just 11 years old. She was taken from her Midvale home, brutally raped, beaten and left for dead.
Midvale Police investigators are interviewed as part of the documentary. Among them, Officer Greg McArthur, "Nothing in my career had prepared me for seeing the brutality that I saw the night I found Charlotte."
Officer Paula Stinson found the large rock that was used to crush Charlotte's head. "The older lady that lived behind her had said she heard some kind of thumping noises. That's when we believe she was getting her head smashed down in the ground."
So badly disfigured by the beating, Charlotte's mother told filmmakers that she didn't even recognize her little girl. "Then her hand was laying over the side of the bed, and she had the little hearts on her fingernails ... Chipped off," remembered Sharon Zahne, "... And I knew... I knew it was her."
Not only did police investigators help with the documentary, one of them actually produced it: Officer Jared Richardson said he felt compelling to tell this story, "It puts a whole new perspective when you deal with it first hand. There are times when people do bad things, and then there is evil."
But in telling a story of evil, Officer Richardson is also telling the story of it's survivors.
Among those survivors is Charlotte herself who is now 21 years old and was also interviewed.
Richardson tells ABC 4 News that he is just now putting the finishing touches on his documentary and it should be ready for the next Sundance Film Festival. He submitted an application to festival organizers Thursday.
You can see a clip from the documentary on
Indiegogo.com by clicking here. With the teaser clip, Richardson is also asking for people to "invest" in the film to cover production and distribution costs.
