Two girls were found safe and a man accused of kidnapping them is in custody after an Amber Alert was issued for the girls on Sunday, Dec. 31.
The man, 44-year-old Terry Miles, was being sought in connection with the death of the girls’ mother.
A deputy from the Las Animas County Sheriff’s Department spotted Miles’s vehicle in Trinidad, Colorado, on Wednesday after receiving a tip that he was in the area.
Miles was arrested without incident and taken into custody. As of Wednesday evening, no charges have been filed against him.
Police detectives planned to interview Miles and the girls on Thursday, Banks said.
The girls, 14-year-old Lilianais “Lilly” Victoria Cake Griffith and 7-year-old Luluvioletta “Lulu” Mariposo Bandera-Magret, were reported safe and were taken to the hospital for examination. Child Protective Services will work to reunite them with family, Banks said.
The girl’s mother, 44-year-old Tonya Bates, was found dead by police on Sunday in her Round Rock, Texas, home, which she shared with Miles. Police were conducting a welfare check when they discovered her body.
Miles was being sought as a person of interest in her death.
Banks said the news and the multi-state amber alert generated “a number of tips,” including sightings of the girls, throughout Colorado. He said they were primarily concentrating their search on Colorado, but were not ruling out the possibility that Miles and the girls were in other states.
Banks said they were very concerned about the girls’ safety.
Miles has a history of domestic abuse. He was arrested four times between 2009 and 2015 on domestic abuse charges, three of which led to convictions.
In 2011, he was arrested in Louisiana on second-degree murder charges but the charges were dropped. He is still considered a person of interest in a 2014 homicide and a 2015 rape case in Calcasieu, Louisiana, according to TV station KPLC.
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