Wife, mother of kidnap-slaying suspect arrested

Wife, mother of kidnap-slaying suspect arrested

Members of the Mississippi Highway Patrol gather at a staging area during the search for a missing Tennessee family, Monday, May 7 2012 in Guntown, Miss. State troopers stopped vehicles at roadblocks Monday and officers searched the yard of a home in northern Mississippi, seeking to unravel the mysterious disappearance of a Tennessee mother and her three daughters and find the family friend accused of abducting them.

GUNTOWN, Miss. (AP) -- The net widened Tuesday in the case of a Mississippi man suspected of killing a Tennessee woman and her teenage daughter and fleeing with her two younger girls as authorities charged his wife and mother in connection with the abduction.

As an intense manhunt for Adam Mayes and the two young girls continued, his wife, Teresa Mayes, and mother, Mary Mayes, were arraigned in a Hardeman County, Tenn., courtroom. Teresa Mayes, 30, was charged with especially aggravated kidnapping and Mary Mayes, 65, was charged with conspiracy to commit kidnapping.

Teresa Mayes told investigators she drove Jo Ann Bain and her daughters from Hardeman County, where they lived, to Union County, Miss., where Adam and Teresa Mayes lived with his parents, according to an affidavit filed in court.

An attorney for Teresa Mayes declined to comment Tuesday afternoon. Calls to the attorney assigned to Mary Mayes were not immediately returned.

Bond was set at $500,000 for Teresa Mayes and $300,000 for Mary Mayes.

The bodies of 31-year-old Jo Ann Bain and 14-year-old Adrienne Bain were found last week behind the mobile home in northern Mississippi where the Mayes family lived. The affidavit provides the first clue that the victims may have been killed soon after they were abducted. It says Adam Mayes' wife and mother saw him digging a hole in the yard on April 27 or soon after.

Alexandria Bain, 12, and Kyliyah Bain, 8, were still missing, and neighbors were planning a candlelight vigil for the girls Tuesday evening.

The FBI said Tuesday authorities are hopeful the two are still alive, but did not elaborate. The affidavit said that some items belonging to the two younger girls had been found at a trailer rented by Adam Mayes in another part of Union County.

Authorities have said that Adam Mayes, 35, was a family friend who was staying with the Bains on April 27, the day the mother and children disappeared.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday, Teresa Mayes' sister, Bobbi Booth, said her sister told her last week that she knew about the killings, but Booth said she thought Teresa Mayes may have been too scared to call the police.

"Teresa started to call, text and Facebook constantly on Thursday," said Booth, who gave an earlier interview to WMC-TV.

Booth told Teresa Mayes to call the police and was assured that she had, but by Saturday Booth had become suspicious about that claim and called police herself.

"I told them exactly what she had told me: Who the bodies were, where they could be dug from," Booth said.

As it turned out, investigators had begun digging in the Mayes' backyard the previous day.

Tennessee Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Kristin Helm said she was unaware of Booth calling about the killings but said she might have called a different law enforcement agency.

Jo Ann Bain's husband, Gary Bain, last saw his wife and daughters when he woke up briefly early April 27. By the time he got up they were gone, but he did not know they were missing until after the girls failed to come home from school.

Adam Mayes and Gary Bain, who had once been married to sisters, had been planning to drive some of the family's belongings to Arizona the next day because the family was moving to that state.

Before he fled, Adam Mayes admitted to authorities that he was the last person to see Jo Ann Bain and her daughters before the disappearance, according to the affidavit.

Police announced Saturday that they had found two bodies at the Mississippi property. They weren't identified as Jo Ann and Adrienne Bain until Monday.

Mary Mayes is accused of agreeing to the kidnapping but not participating in it.

The affidavit does not hint at a possible motive for Mary or Teresa Mayes' involvement.

Friends and neighbors of the Bains have said Adam Mayes was like an uncle to the three girls.

Booth said they were "like a big happy family." She said she finds it hard to believe that Adam Mayes could kill a child.

"I have cried until I'm sick," she said. "I was totally shocked. I've known him since I was little. We played together when we were kids. I always thought he was odd, but I never dreamed he'd do this."

Booth said she has not had much contact with her sister for the past 11 years because Adam Mayes didn't want his wife to contact her.

"He was very aggressive with her, abusive," she said. Booth said Teresa Mayes also told her she thought her husband was having an affair with Jo Ann Bain.

TBI spokeswoman Kristin Helm said they don't know if Bain and Mayes were romantically involved. They know the families were friends, and early reports from the investigators said they were trying to determine if Jo Ann Bain had willingly gone with the suspect.

FBI spokesman Joel Siskovic said on Tuesday investigators believed the two youngest daughters were still with Mayes.

Siskovic said no further details were available on the deaths or the search for Mayes. The FBI has not said how Jo Ann and Adrienne Bain died.

Meanwhile, FBI agents in green camouflage, carrying high-powered rifles joined K-9 units and SWAT teams in a search of the woods and back roads of north Mississippi near Mayes' home.

State troopers stopped vehicles and looked in trunks Monday, and FBI agents continued to search the yard of the house where Adam Mayes and his family were living.

Mayes was last seen a week ago in Guntown, about 80 miles south of the Bain family's home in Whiteville, Tenn.

Siskovic said authorities talked to Mayes early on in the investigation, but he fled when they tried to contact him again.

Mayes is considered armed and dangerous.

Linda Kirkland, a cook at the Country Cafe in Whiteville who is a Bain family friend, said the family was moving to Arizona because two of the girls had asthma.

Mayes also has ties to Arizona, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida. Booth said she told authorities to look for him in Florida, where he has relatives.