AUSTIN, Texas _ The U.S. attorney's office has charged Texas resident Terry Miles with kidnapping 14-year-old Lilianais Victoria Cake Griffith and 7-year-old Luluvioletta Bandera-Margaret from Round Rock, north of Austin, according to a news release Thursday.
Miles was arrested Wednesday night in Colorado without incident, officials said, and the girls were reported to be safe. Their mother, Tonya Bates, was found slain in their Round Rock home over the weekend.
Police received a call to check on her welfare Saturday when she didn't show up for work, the release said. Police found Bates' body in her home and she "appeared to have suffered from blunt force trauma," the release said. It said no one else was at the home when her body was found and that her 2017 Hyundai Accent was missing.
Investigators discovered Bates had two daughters and a roommate named Terry Miles, the release said. It said Miles' mother received a text message at 1 a.m. Saturday from a phone that belonged to one of Bates' daughters. Police got cellphone information on the children's phones and found one of them in a heavily wooded area next to a Walmart store in Round Rock, the release said.
Surveillance from the store showed what appeared to be Miles buying camping-related items and then leaving in a vehicle that appeared to be Bates' car, the release said. It did not say what day the surveillance video was taken.
It said authorities discovered Bates' missing car was in northern New Mexico near the Colorado state line. Las Animas County sheriff's deputies arrested Miles near La Veta, Colo., on Wednesday evening.
