A 49-year-old man was arrested in Salt Lake City after allegedly tracking his ex-girlfriend's vehicle with a hidden device and following her hundreds of miles from Alaska as she moved toward a new life in Arizona. Steven Samuelson now faces a third-degree felony stalking charge and is being held at the Salt Lake County Jail without bail.
The woman had lived with Samuelson in Alaska before deciding to relocate to Arizona, according to ABC4 Utah. She stopped in Salt Lake City during the move, and according to an affidavit cited by the station, she had not given Samuelson any information about her travel plans and believed he had no way to locate or contact her. That assumption fell apart at dinner.
Samuelson allegedly approached her table in Salt Lake City without warning or announcement, the outlet reports. The woman called security, and he left without incident, but the encounter was far from over.
A Hotel Room Request That Raised Alarms
Shaken, the woman returned to her hotel and told staff to alert her immediately if anyone asked for her room, per the station's report. About 20 minutes later, Samuelson showed up at the same hotel, asked for her by name, and checked into a room of his own.
Staff refused to share any information about her, but Samuelson didn't stop there. He called the front desk and asked to be connected directly to her room phone, the same account states. He later admitted to police that he knew she was staying at the hotel and had sought both her room number and a line to her phone.
Tracking Device Admission Leads to Arrest
Salt Lake City police detained Samuelson, and he reportedly told officers he had tracked the woman's vehicle using a small tracking device, though he did not explain where he placed it or how he used it to follow her, according to the same report. He was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail on one count of stalking, a third-degree felony, and remains held without bail.
The case lands amid broader concern in Utah over covert GPS and Bluetooth tracking. A Utah lawmaker has proposed legislation addressing nonconsensual tracking devices, and Deseret News reports that the Statewide Association of Prosecutors and Public Attorneys has flagged unauthorized tracking as a recurring feature of domestic abuse cases. The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey found that in 2023 and 2024, GPS technology was used to track 29.3% of male stalking victims and 15.6% of female stalking victims, per the same Deseret News report.
A Pattern Seen Beyond Utah
Unwanted tracking has turned up in unexpected places elsewhere in the country. Deseret News describes cases in which a family in Colorado found a device hidden in a child's toy, a woman in Texas discovered one in her bag, and a parent in Florida found one tucked into a child's shoe.
In Utah, one woman told KUTV she discovered in 2011 that her husband had hired a private investigator who secretly installed a tracking device on her vehicle, an experience cited as part of the push for stricter rules around GPS trackers. Apple has since rolled out a feature warning people when an AirTag appears to be following them, and Salt Lake City police told Deseret News that reports of unauthorized tracking through the devices have since declined.
