Wanted teen agrees to return home to Kentucky
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A teen accused of setting out on a two-week crime spree with his girlfriend of three months agreed Monday to return home to Kentucky without going through a formal extradition process.
Dalton Hayes, 18, and his 13-year-old girlfriend, Cheyenne Phillips, both of Leitchfield, Ky., were arrested at 12:10 a.m. CT Sunday without incident in Panama City Beach, Fla.
"I'll sign the papers so I can go back to Kentucky," Hayes said Monday during a brief proceeding held via a video link-up between Bay County Jail and the Bay County Courthouse in Panama City.
The two Kentucky teenagers set out Jan. 3 on a two-week 'Bonnie and Clyde' spree in which police say they stole three vehicles, pilfered checks and evaded police across at least five Southern states. Leitchfield is a city of almost 7,000 residents about 60 miles southwest of Louisville, Ky.
Hayes, who is being held in Bay County Jail in Florida on a charge of custodial interference, is expected to be charged with burglary, theft, criminal trespassing and criminal mischief when he returns home later this week, Grayson County Sheriff Norman Chaffins said. Cheyenne will face charges in juvenile court because she is a minor.
"Obviously this is the best possible outcome we can have," Chaffins said.
The pair's flight started two days after the new year when Cheyenne's father reported her missing, Chaffins said. Police learned she had been spotted last with Hayes, and they started searching for the pair.
"I had not been able to eat," said Cheyenne's mother, Sherry Peters. "(I was) just sick, just wanted to lay around the house, just worried and had to be put on medicine for my anxiety."
Between Jan. 3 and 11, authorities think the couple stayed in adjacent Breckinridge County, where Hayes led police on a foot chase after crashing a stolen truck, Chaffins said. The couple then returned to Grayson County, where they stole a second truck before heading south, he said.
Hayes and Cheyenne are believed to have made their way through North Carolina and South Carolina — where they were spotted at a Walmart and thought to have passed two stolen checks — before reaching Henry County, Ga. There, they abandoned the second pickup and are accused of stealing a 2001 Toyota Tundra from a driveway about 30 miles southeast of Atlanta.
Authorities said the U.S. Marshals Service and Panama City Beach Police discovered Hayes and Cheyenne asleep in the Georgia truck and surrounded it before taking them into custody.
Chaffins and the teens' mothers said they are relieved that the 1,300-mile or more crime spree ended peacefully.
"I'm extremely happy that they had caught them and they were safe," said Hayes' mother, Tammy Martin. They both worried that they would get a phone call telling them that their children had been shot, especially because police had learned that two of the pick-up trucks stolen had firearms inside.
If the couple had not been found asleep, they might have run again, Chaffins said.
"I think me and the family and many other law-enforcement agencies were not getting a good feeling about how this was going to turn out," Chaffins said.
Florida's Department of Children & Families was called to assist Panama City Beach Police, but Cheyenne was not in the state's custody, said DaMonica Rivas, a department spokeswoman.
"The juvenile has been taken to a safe location until arrangements with the family are made," Rivas said.
Martin had urged her son and his girlfriend to surrender and "face the consequences."
She said Cheyenne had portrayed herself as 19, and the family, including her son, believed her. By the time her son realized she was a mere 13, "he was already done in love with her."
Peters, who has been estranged from her daughter, said she plans to get more involved in Cheyenne's life.
"We're going to do our best ... to help her through the troubles that she has probably has gotten into out there and get her back to her 13-year-old normal-age life," she said.
Martin, too, wants her son to get back to normality.
When he left, Hayes was running from trouble, according to court records. He faces burglary and theft charges in Grayson County stemming from an arrest late last year.
"He's going to be sorry that he has hurt so many people," she said. "I know he'll probably want to apologize to them because he's not like that."
Contributing: The Associated Press
