RICHMOND, VA —
Breaking news in the search for a missing 12-year-old Roanoke girl. According to Roanoke Police Brittany Mae Smith has been found safe in another state and her accused abductor, Jeffrey Scott Easely has been taken into custody.
No other details have been revealed. The Roanoke Police department has scheduled an 8:00 p.m. news conference and plans to give more information then.
KIDNAPPED VIRGINIA GIRL FOUND SAFE in another STATE
Brittany Mae Smith
A 12-year-old Virginia girl has been found, along with the 32-year-old man that police believe abducted her, Roanoke, Virginia, county authorities said Friday.
Police said in an e-mailed statement that Brittany Mae Smith "has been safely located," and that Jeffrey Scott Easley has been taken into a custody in a state outside Virginia.
Further information -- including where the two were found, and under what circumstances -- was not immediately available. A press conference involving Roanoke County police is set for 8 p.m. ET.
A few hours earlier, police released new video showing Brittany Smith and Easley shopping at Walmart on the same day, they say, her mother was likely killed.
Law enforcement and citizens had called in about 700 tips since Virginia authorities issued an Amber Alert for Brittany on Monday. But at the earlier press conference Friday, Roanoke County, Virginia police Chief Ray Lavinder said authorities did not have any solid leads on the whereabouts of Brittany Smith or Easley.
"We're very concerned," Lavinder said then. "For someone just to disappear, to drop off the face of the earth for a week, that's very unusual."
Video released Friday showed the pair one week earlier walking together through a Walmart in Salem, Virginia, where they purchased a blue, domed tent. That had been the last confirmed sighting of either Brittany Smith or Easley, who was the boyfriend of the girl's dead mother.
Three days later, police got a phone call from 41-year-old Tina Smith's co-workers, saying they were worried that she hadn't shown up for work. They found her body inside her Salem home, and issued an Amber Alert for her daughter, Brittany, after learning she wasn't at school.
Lavinder said at Friday's press conference that experts now believe Tina Smith was killed exactly one week earlier, meaning her body was at her house for days before it was discovered.
"That's probably as close as medical science is going to be able to give us," Lavinder said of estimates that Tina Smith died between late the morning of December 3 and sometime that afternoon.
No one has been arrested in the homicide investigation related to Tina Smith's death, though Lavinder said that authorities do want to talk with Easley. The chief has said that he met Tina Smith online this summer, and moved into the family home in October.
Florida joined Virginia in issuing an Amber Alert for Brittany on Wednesday, and Alabama followed suit on Thursday.
The chief said that the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was helping set up billboards in North Carolina, West Virginia and Tennessee, in addition to Virginia. Authorities also announced Friday they had created a new website -- findbrittany.com -- with information about the case.
Two recent tips in recent days in Palm Beach County, Florida, and Florence, Alabama, did not end up netting Easley, and Lavinder said Friday that there had been no "positive sightings" of him or Brittany.
Three of the girl's aunts spoke at Thursday's press conference, including Angel Spangler, who urged Easley to "do the right thing" so that the seventh-grader could be on hand for her mother's still unplanned funeral.
"Brittany, we want to have good times with you again, and we want you to come home," said Rhonda Blanton. "Mr. Easley, please let Brittany come home for Christmas."
Authorities said they do not know if the girl went willingly with Easley, who has a felony abduction warrant out for him.
His car was found relatively early in the search, but police as of early Friday had not yet tracked down a silver 2005 Dodge
KIDNAPPED VIRGINIA GIRL FOUND SAFE in another STATE
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Mon Dec 13, 2010 7:23 am