Approaching 42 years since Utah toddler was kidnapped & killed

SUNSET, Utah — 42 years ago, an incident at a park in Davis County changed a family and community forever.

“It’s been hard,” said Elaine Runyan. “It’s not a journey that I was supposed to take, it’s not how it was supposed to be.”

On August 26, 1982, Elaine’s daughter Rachael Runyan was abducted from a park behind their home in the city of Sunset. She was three years old.

“She was lured across the park to a main roadway at another park, and they said they were going to get the kids ice cream. Rachael said she liked bubblegum ice cream, so he was kind of like, ‘Come follow me,’” recounted Elaine.

About three weeks after she was kidnapped, Rachael’s body was found on the outskirts of Morgan County. But, even all these years later, we still don’t know how she got there and who killed her. Rachael’s mom made it her mission to advocate for missing children and be a voice for families.

“It changed my whole life. I spent pretty much my whole life trying to find who did this and keeping her story alive,” said Elaine.

Before nationwide AMBER alerts were used to try to find children who had been abducted, they were called Rachael alerts in Utah. The alert was introduced a month before Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped in 2002, so it was used at that time.

“Now when this happens, you get these text alerts, you get these smartphone alerts, it hits the radio and things like that where everybody stops because they get that tone, and they see a vehicle description, they see a child’s name, they see a direction of travel and a license plate. That didn’t exist in 1982,” said Jason Jensen, co-founder of the Utah Cold Case Coalition.

“If the Rachael Runyan case was to happen today, I am 100% convinced that we would have had it solved almost immediately with the technology out there,” said Sunset City Police Chief Brett Jamison.

Jamison took the case over when he became chief two years ago, and frequently looks through the case files, trying to find something they might have missed. This is still an active investigation.

“There’s not an officer on this department that doesn’t think about little Miss Rachael Runyan daily,” said Chief Jamison. “Every lead we’ve actually come across, we’ve dissected it, and again still, we have no physical evidence that can tie anybody to this particular case.”

The family says they have some ideas about who might be responsible, but they are working with investigators on those tips. They hope bringing this story to the forefront might remind someone of a little detail that could help tie a bow on Rachael’s tragedy.

“I know she’s in heaven and no one can ever hurt her again, and I’ve had to spend a lot of years without her,” Elaine said.