Police: Sex offender steals school bus, tries to pick up child

Fredricksen then found a map with a bus route that included names and addresses of various stops in the nearby town of Cleveland, Utah. He reportedly took the bus and stopped at home along this route and attempted to pick up a little girl who was outside her home.

Emery County Sheriff's Lt. Gayle Jensen confirmed the incident, “He did stop at one residence and tried to pick up a young child, the father intercepted that and he went on down, the road at which time he met a person and asked for another address. She was very suspicious about that so she called that in, and at that point, we responded to that area and was able to bring this to a conclusion.”

In both thefts, the keys had been left in the vehicles.

Fredricksen was charged with two counts of theft of a vehicle and attempted child kidnapping. According to The Salt Lake Tribune, Fredericksen took a badge and posed as a firefighter, monitored emergency scanner traffic and went to accident scenes.