- Christopher Wiggins appeared in Utah court for child kidnapping charges Thursday.
- Wiggins allegedly abducted a 13-year-old girl triggering an Amber Alert last month.
- Previously convicted of crimes against minors Wiggins faces life imprisonment if convicted.
OGDEN — Amber Alert suspect Christopher Wiggins faced a Utah judge for the first time Thursday after he was caught with a missing girl in Colorado last month.
Wiggins, 34, is charged with child kidnapping, a first-degree felony. Investigators say he took a 13-year-old girl from her home last month, triggering an Amber Alert before the two were discovered near Fort Collins, Colorado.
Making his initial appearance in an orange prison jumpsuit while cuffed and shackled, Wiggins told the judge he cannot afford an attorney and does not believe he could return to his place of work.
"Due to the charges and the fact that her, the victim- alleged victim's father works there, I would no longer even be allowed to step foot on that property," Wiggins said.
Second District Judge Craig Hall appointed a public defender to represent Wiggins and set his next court date for January.
This is not the first time Wiggins has been accused of crimes against a minor. He's a convicted sex offender. Court documents filed in a 2011 case reveal he previously preyed on a 15-year-old girl. But Wiggins' conviction in that case did not require him to be on Utah's Sex Offender Registry for life.
Speaking with KSL reporter Garna Mejia on the day of the Amber Alert in November, the girl's mom said they took in Wiggins and his own young daughter after learning they needed a place to stay. But she said she discovered concerning behavior from Wiggins toward her daughter and the situation became violent when she tried to intervene.
"He actually shot my car with me and my daughter in the car," she told Mejia.
According to court records, the mother later shared the same account with investigators.
The mother also said she was aware Wiggins is a convicted sex offender, but he was no longer on the registry and had downplayed the severity of the case.
"They were bull crap charges is the way he put it," the mother said. "He told me that the girl — he had never even slept with the girl — that the girl was mad at him because he didn't want to be with her anymore. And so she claimed rape and he got charged."
But court records obtained by the KSL Investigators show that's not how Wiggins himself described what happened. In a handwritten letter to the judge in the case, Wiggins admitted, "I dated a girl who was 15 years old I failed to ask how old she was and once I found out I ignored that fact and continued on." He also claimed in the same letter, "I am a changed man."
Now, charging documents in the latest case against Wiggins indicate investigators found a love note from Wiggins to the teen victim, including statements like, "I will sacrifice everything to be with you forever."
"He is never allowed around me, my kids (or) my family ever again," the girl's mother previously told KSL. "And I hope he rots away in that jail cell."
Wiggins now faces up to life in prison and a requirement to be on the registry again if convicted.
