Surveillance video showed the pair at a Walmart in Oklahoma City on March 15. “Now begins another hard chapter, but for now, we celebrate.”Ĭummins and the girl disappeared March 13 as a police investigation into their relationship was heating up.Ī high school health sciences teacher in the Tennessee town of Culleoka, Cummins had been suspended in February, less than a month after a student reported seeing him and the 15-year-old kissing in a classroom. “There aren’t words in the English language to describe the level of relief and elation experienced by the Thomas family,” said Jason Whatley, the attorney for the girl’s family. Elizabeth was walking behind him and was detained. Mike Gilley confirmed that his team worked with a neighbor to draw Cummins out of the cabin. When Cummins left the cabin, investigators were there to arrest him, the cabin’s owner, Monk O’Hare, told CNN. Thursday morning, Barry asked Cummins to come outside and help him build a rock wall on the property. He called police Wednesday night, KRCR reported, and authorities asked the caretaker to help them capture Cummins.
#TAD CUMMINS ARRESTED IN CALIFORNIA LICENSE#
The pair went to the commune but returned to the gas station Tuesday, apparently having been turned away, Barry told KDRV.īarry said he offered Cummins work - moving rocks - and a place to stay: a small cabin for which Barry was the caretaker.īut Barry said he eventually became suspicious, noting that Cummins was driving a Nissan Rogue without any license plates, and that Cummins’ companion spoke few words for herself, he told KRCR and CNN affiliate KOBI.Īs he discussed and researched the pair with someone, Barry saw Cummins’ picture online in an urgent Amber Alert widely distributed by authorities. “I gave him $40 and put gas in his tank.” He said he had a house fire and he got fired from his job, and he had his last $10 or whatever,” Barry told KRCR. But they’d been in the heavily wooded area 60 miles south of the Oregon line since at least last week, according to Griffin Barry, the man who says he eventually helped police capture Cummins.Ĭummins and the teen arrived at a Cecilville-area gas station last week, apparently on their way to visit a commune, Barry told CNN affiliate KDRV.Ĭummins, 50, told Barry he was 44, and that the teen was his 22-year-old wife, Barry told CNN affiliate KRCR. The two spent at least one night in the cabin, police say. The girl is expected to be returned to relatives in Tennessee Friday, her family says. The former teacher is due in a California court Friday, facing federal and state charges stemming from her disappearance. YREKA, California - Tad Cummins was an intensely sought fugitive, trumpeted from coast to coast as the Tennessee teacher accused of running off with his 15-year-old student.īut before his capture this week, he and the young woman he called his wife slipped into a remote Northern California community unrecognized and Cummins passed himself off for days as a down-on-his luck Colorado man who’d just lost his job and home, according to the man who eventually tipped off police.Ĭummins was arrested - and the girl was found safe - Thursday outside a cabin in Cecilville, California, ending a 39-day hunt for the teen who was reported missing some 1,900 miles away in her hometown south of Nashville. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated. This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated.
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