A 14-year-old Columbus boy who was allegedly kidnapped by a married woman has been returned to his parents.
Misty Rhoden Moore, 28, and Trevor Whaley, 14, left Columbus together on Monday evening. On Tuesday, Whaley called home and asked to be picked up.
“He called a family member late yesterday and said he was at the Wal-Mart in Tuscaloosa, Ala., and that he wanted his granddaddy to come pick him up,” said Detective Tony Cooper of the Lowndes County Sheriff”s Office.
Cooper said he plans to interview Whaley today.
Moore was living with Trevor Whaley”s parents, Thomas Whaley and Tracie Jaynes, while she was separated from her husband and dealing with “personal problems.” Cooper said she and the boy developed a relationship over time, but his parents eventually asked her to leave.
“There”s no evidence at this time that it was a sexual thing,” Cooper said. “We just know she was told to leave, and she took the son with her.”
Cooper is still pursuing Moore under a kidnapping warrant.
“If you take a child without the parents” permission under the age of 16, it can be considered kidnapping even if it”s consensual,” Cooper said. “If it goes to trial, the jury can give her up to life,” Cooper said. “Or if she doesn”t get life, she”s looking at one to 30 years.”
Cooper said Moore is traveling in a black 2002 Pontiac Firebird with Lowndes County license plate LUS 712. He thinks she is headed to Tennessee where she has relatives.
Phone numbers for Thomas Whaley and Tracie Jaynes could not be found as of press time.
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