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Two teen runaways, wanted in connection with a multi-state crime spree, were captured in Panama City Beach, Florida. Cheyenne Phillips and Dalton Hayes were taken into custody without incident and will be extradited back to Kentucky to face charges. VPC
In this January 2015 photo made from surveillance video and released by the Grayson County Sheriff's Office, in Kentucky, 18-year-old Dalton Hayes and 13-year-old Cheyenne Phillips leave a South Carolina Wal-Mart.(Photo: Grayson County Sheriff's Office/AP)
LOUISVILLE — Teen runaways Cheyenne Phillips and Dalton Hayes, whose multi-state crime spree has captured the attention of the nation, are now in police custody.
Around midnight Sunday, U.S. Marshals in Panama City Beach, Fla., discovered 18-year-old Hayes and 13-year-old Phillips sleeping in the 2001 Toyota Tundra that was reported stolen in Henry County, Ga.
Police reports indicate the two were taken into custody without incident. The process has begun to extradite the teens back to Kentucky, where they will face several felony charges.
USA TODAY
Kentucky 'Bonnie and Clyde' teens on the run
Hayes and Phillips began their run from the law and their families earlier this month when they vanished from their small hometown in western Kentucky. The two then allegedly went on a crime spree of stolen vehicles and pilfered checks across the South.
Hayes' mother, Tammy Martin, had urged her son and his companion to surrender and "face the consequences."
Martin said the couple had been dating for about three months. She said the girl portrayed herself as being 19, and the family, including Hayes, believed her.
In this December 2014 file photo provided by Tammy Martin, her son Dalton Hayes poses with his girlfriend Cheyenne Phillips at his family's home in Leitchfield, Ky.(Photo: Tammy Martin, AP)
Cheyenne "would go in and write checks, and she would come out with cigarettes and stuff, so I didn't have any reason not to believe she wasn't 19," Martin said. "Because normally you can't buy cigarettes when you're 13 years old.
By the time her son realized she was a mere 13, "he was already done in love with her," Martin said.
When he hit the road, Hayes was running away from trouble back home. He faces burglary and theft charges in his home county, stemming from an arrest late last year, according to Grayson County court records.
He was planning to be at the local judicial center on Jan. 5 to find out if a grand jury had indicted him on the charges, his mother said. His case did not come up, but by that time the teens were gone.
Norman Chaffins, sheriff in Grayson County, Kentucky, where the pair disappeared 14 days ago, said the couple's behavior had become "increasingly brazen and dangerous."
Twice, the teens were able to evade law officers in Kentucky, the sheriff said. They crashed the first truck they stole, plowing through a cattle farm, and hid in the woods. Then they later stole another truck nearby, Chaffins said.
At one point, the two were spotted at a Wal-Mart in South Carolina, where the teens are thought to have passed two stolen checks, said Manning, South Carolina, Police Chief Blair Shaffer. They were seen in a vehicle that apparently was stolen from Kentucky, he said.
Authorities believe they then headed to Georgia and stole a pickup truck from the driveway of a man's home in Henry County, about 30 miles southeast of Atlanta. The homeowner awoke Wednesday to find his vehicle was gone, along with two handguns he kept inside, Henry County police Lt. Joey Smith said.
Hours later, another truck the couple are suspected of having stolen in another state was found nearby. It had been crashed through a fence and abandoned behind a vacant building on neighboring property, Smith said.
Martin said her son texted her a few days after their disappearance to say the couple were in Mississippi. They were spotted soon after that in Kentucky, she said.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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