Abducted kids found safe in NM

Mom slain in Calif.; couple being sought

LOS ANGELES — Three children kidnapped after their mother was killed in a remote area outside Los Angeles were found safe Wednesday as authorities continued to search for the couple wanted in connection with both crimes.

Joshua Aaron Robertson, 27, and Brittany Humphrey, 22, fled the Los Angeles area with the children on Interstate 40, and drove through Arizona and into New Mexico, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

The children, two girls and a boy between 2 and 5, were found safe in a motel on the outskirts of Albuquerque after the couple left the children with a good Samaritan, the sheriff’s department said.

That’s nearly 700 miles east of where the children’s mother was found dead with gunshot wounds along a road in a remote area of Los Angeles County on Aug. 14.

Their mother, who didn’t have identification on her body, was identified four days after her death as Kimberly Harvill.

Humphrey is Harvill’s half-sister, and therefore the children’s aunt.

The sheriff’s department still considers Humphrey and Robertson as on the run and armed and dangerous. Investigators believe they were headed to parts east of New Mexico.

The couple has family in Nebraska, and ties to Kansas, Louisiana and Mississippi, said Lt. Joe Mendoza.

Sheriff’s officials say Robertson has an infant with him who is unrelated to Harvill’s children, who were in the custody of authorities working to return them to California.

The children’s father died previously, but they have a grandmother in Fresno, authorities said.