A 44-year-old registered sex offender will spend the rest of his life behind bars for the kidnapping and brutal sexual assault of an 8-year-old Rock Springs girl earlier this year. Sweetwater County Sheriff John Grossnickle and Sweetwater County Attorney Dan Erramouspe issued a joint release announcing the sentencing of Luis Saavedra Villa. Saavedra Villa is a foreign national from Mexico who has been living in the country illegally after being deported after a sexual assault conviction in Uinta County, Wyoming in 2001. The case came about after the victim told her brother that she had been sexually assaulted and the authorities were contacted. It was learned that Saavedra Villa, who was known as a family friend and to the girl as “uncle”, had picked up the girl the evening before at her residence while her mom was at work. He then took her to McDonald’s and afterwards sexually assaulted her in his truck. The girl tried to escape but Saavedra Villa locked the doors. After the brutal assault, he forced the girl to clean up her own blood from his truck before taking her back home. “After a medical and forensic examination at Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County, the child was immediately transported for emergency surgery at Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City for injuries she sustained during the sexual assault,” shares the release. “Both Erramouspe and Grossnickle credited the outcome of this case to the unparalleled bravery of the young child victim during the investigation, the due diligence of investigators, and a collaborative effort by both agencies, which allowed for a successful prosecution to the fullest extent of the law of this heinous and brutal attack by a predator who will never again have the opportunity to victimize another innocent child, all without ever risking re-victimizing her by needing her to testify at trial.” After pleading no contest, Luis Saavedra Villa was sentenced to 80 years to life for aggravated kidnapping and 45 to 50 years for the 1st degree sexual assault of a minor, to be run consecutively for a minimum of 125 years in prison.
