Teen’s abduction frustrated law enforcement for weeks
Long-awaited tip was vital after national manhunt
During the 38 days that Tad Cummins and 15-yearold Elizabeth Thomas were missing, as a massive manhunt spread from Tennessee across the country, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation received more than 1,500 tips. But for five weeks, investigators came up empty. The 50-year-old teacher and the teenager he is accused of abducting were nowhere to be found.
Late Wednesday night, the tip that TBI investigators were desperately hoping for finally arrived.
It came from a caller who told investigators that Cummins and the teen, the subject of an Amber Alert, might be living in a mountain cabin near Cecilville, Calif., about 100 miles south of the Oregon border.
Tennessee investigators coordinated with the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office, which found the silver Nissan Rogue belonging to Cummins and kept the vehicle under surveillance for several hours in one of the northernmost parts of California.
And then, at daybreak Thursday, the authorities captured Cummins and rescued the teen.
Authorities said Elizabeth was physically unharmed, but her attorney said the teen has “suffered severe emotional trauma and that her process of recovery is just beginning,” according to the Associated Press.
Anthony Thomas, the teen’s father, told “Good Morning America” on Friday that he thinks his daughter was brainwashed. When authorities closed in on Cummins and Elizabeth at the remote cabin, Sheriff Jon E. Lopey told the AP, Elizabeth was “laughing, crying and acting stoic.”
Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Sgt. Mike Gilley told CNN that Cummins expressed relief after his capture. “I’m glad this is over,” Cummins said, according to Gilley.
By the weekend, the girl had been flown back to Tennessee and reunited with her family.
Meanwhile, investigators from TBI, the FBI and the Maury County (Tenn.) Sheriff’s Office traveled to Northern California to continue their investigation. Inside the cabin, they found a single sleeping pad, clothing and two loaded guns, authorities said.
Cummins, who is being held by the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Department without bond, faces federal and state charges that “could keep him behind bars for many years,” TBI director Mark Gwyn said.
Once Cummins is extradited to Tennessee, he will be charged with sexual contact with a minor and aggravated kidnapping, authorities said.
The saga began in March, after Cummins handed over the title of his SUV, put up some other personal effects and walked out of a loan office with $4,500 in cash.
The high school health teacher was on the verge of losing his job and his freedom after he’d been spotted kissing a 15-yearold student, according to the TBI. A criminal investigation was swirling, and authorities believed Cummins, who was armed with two handguns, had little left to lose.
The $4,500, investigators said, helped the pair elude authorities during a manhunt that made national headlines. TBI investigators said Cummins, who had been the teen’s health teacher at Culleoka Unit School, may have planned to abduct Elizabeth well before he picked her up at a Shoney’s restaurant in Columbia, Tenn.
After the pair’s disappearance, investigators said they received hundreds of tips from 24 states, but not enough information to tighten the dragnet despite a multistate manhunt and Cummins’s addition to Tennessee’s mostwanted list.
Last month, the agency released new images of Cummins in an effort to keep the case in the spotlight. The pictures were from a week before Cummins and Elizabeth disappeared, and they showed him wearing a camouflage cap and pushing a shopping cart at a store.
Tips continued to pour in, but they led nowhere, until the call about Cummins’s car.
“What happened in California this morning, however, proves it only takes one person to lead to a successful end,” said Gwyn, the TBI director. “We are extremely thankful the hard work of all partners in this search has paid off. We’re also grateful for the public’s support and vigilance throughout this search effort.”