The two were last spotted buying supplies at a grocery store in Rogersville after Carlie was picked up at school, but they haven’t been spotted since.
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He said something compelled him to check a particular hill again, and that’s when he said he found the two, with Carlie holding her teddy bear. The uncle and his wife had custody of Carlie and her little sister while their father was jailed on drug charges, but the girls went back to live with their father in 2015, TBI spokesman TBI spokesman Josh DeVine said earlier Thursday. Simpson reportedly lied to school administrators and said the girl’s father had been in a vehicle wreck to get her out of class.
Two men became heroes Thursday when they found a missing 9-year-old girl in a remote section of east Tennessee.
Carlie “appeared to be in reasonably good healthy”, but that the two “didn’t’ have much food, so she probably hadn’t eaten much”, Armstrong added.
Baptist minister Roger Carpenter and friends Donnie Lawson and Stewart Franklin, farmers who are also practised hunters, were acting on police appeals to search isolated areas when they found the two in a barn on Thursday. One of the men in the group held Simpson at gunpoint while another called 911, TBI Director Mark Gwyn said at a news conference.
Like why would Simpson allegedly kidnap Carlie?
Simpson is accused of taking Carlie from her school in Rogersville on May 4. Simpson has no custodial rights to Carlie, and the TBI believes that Carlie is in imminent danger of serious bodily injury or death.
Carlie’s search and rescue, which lasted eight days, was a multi-agency effort, including: Rogersville Police Department, Hawkins County Sheriff’s Office, the United States Marshal’s Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency, and the Tennessee Highway Patrol. “Thank God we went back there”.
“He had access to her every day, he was obsessed with her, he wanted her, and he wanted her all to himself”, Mr Trent said.
Gwyn said the Amber Alert and the public’s response to it (including all the tips) proved critical in finding Carlie. They were not found at a campground.
The Washington Post reported that on Thursday, the TBI had added Gary Simpson to its Top 10 Most Wanted list.
According to WCYB in Johnson City, Simpson was taken into custody near Gravelly Valley Road in Hawkins County. In Hawkins County, community members organized several searches to comb through the rural areas.
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Simpson is scheduled to be arraigned on Monday.
