2 girls doing well after kidnapping, mom’s death

The girls, 14 and 7, are in the same foster home in Hays County.

Two girls who were recovered in Colorado after being kidnapped from their Round Rock home where their mother was found slain are doing well in foster care, according to a report from a state agency.

Lilianais Victoria Griffith, 14, and Luluvioletta Bandera-Margret, 7, are staying at the same foster home in Hays County, said a court report filed Friday by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. The foster parents “want to provide a safe, secure environment where the girls can perhaps begin to grieve their mother’s passing and start to heal,” the report said.

Both of the sisters seemed to be in good physical condition when they arrived at the foster home and had no marks or bruises on them, according to the report.

The man charged in their kidnapping, Terry Miles, was being held Wednesday in federal custody in Colorado. Police have said he is a person of interest in the killing of the girls’ mother, 44-year-old Tonya Bates.

“We are still investigating the homicide,” said Nick Olivier, a Round Rock police spokesman. Miles was Bates’ roommate.

Miles was arrested Jan. 3 after law enforcement officers stopped him while he was driving Bates’ missing car near La Veta, Colo., officials said. They said the girls were in the car with him.

The sisters, now attending school in Hays County, “like their foster parents but are not exactly used to having routines and schedules to follow but they are adjust-