Friday, May 11, 2012

Murder, kidnap suspect dead; 2 girls safe

(CBS News) ALPINE, Miss. - The manhunt for murder and kidnapping suspect Adam Mayes is over. The two missing girls who were with him are now safe.

Police say Mayes killed himself Thursday night in Alpine, Miss. after they caught up with him.

For two weeks, search teams here in Mississippi had two priorities: find Mayes, and bring the girls home alive. It did both.

Just a day after adding Mayes to the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted" list and offering a $175,000 reward, officials caught their break.

"We are very relieved at this event tonight," Aaron Ford, the special agent who heads the FBI's Memphis office, told reporters. "We have two little girls who we can return Tennessee, to their families."

The hunt for Mayes came to its dramatic end two weeks after he disappeared with 12-year-old Alexandria Bain and her 8-year-old sister, Kiliyah.

Acting on a tip, authorities closed in on the three in a heavily wooded area behind a small Mississippi church. Alexandria was spotted first, then Mayes.

"Officers immediately issued commands to Adam Mayes to show his hands," Ford says. "Mayes pulled a semi-automatic pistol from his waistband and shot himself in the head."

Emergency responders brought the fugitive back to life twice before he died at a local hospital.

The girls were suffering from exposure, dehydration and poison ivy, and were taken in for treatment as a precaution. They were later released.

Their ordeal ended just three miles from Mayes' home, where the bodies of their mother, Jo Ann Bain, and sister, Adrienne, were found last week.

Police say Mayes' wife, Teresa, told them he killed Jo Ann and Adrienne so he could take the girls. It's believed Mayes, who was considered a close family friend of the Bains, thought he was their father.

The FBI has crossed Mayes off its Most Wanted List - the poster with him on it now says deceased -- and his wife and mother are behind bars, charged in connection with the case. But officials warn the investigation is far from over.

"If we determine that there were any person or person that assisted Adam Mayes while he was on the run with these girls," says Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director Mark Gwyn, "we plan on arrest and prosecuting them."

Seventeen law enforcement agencies worked together to try to find Mayes and the two girls. While the search stretched across three counties, officials always believed Mayes was close by. He had no car and little money.