LAS VEGAS — A grandfather and a woman in California were ordered detained as witnesses Monday in the investigation of the kidnapping of a 6- year-old boy in Las Vegas, but little was disclosed about what information they may have.
Terri Leavy, 42, was taken into custody in California on Sunday, said FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller. She is believed to be the companion of Clemons Fred Tinnemeyer, 51, the grandfather of the boy, Cole Puffinburger.
Authorities said Leavy was wanted on an outstanding federal material-witness warrant.
U.S. Magistrate Oswald Parada late Monday ordered Leavy and Tinnemeyer turned over to the U.S. Marshals Service. Under a federal statute, they can be held for a “reasonable amount of time” until a deposition can be taken or they testify under oath.
Leavy and Tinnemeyer have not been charged in the case. Their attorney, Joan Politeo, declined to comment.
The warrants and affidavits in the case are under seal, said Natalie Collins, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Las Vegas.
Cole was dropped off in a Las Vegas neighborhood late Saturday, and investigators have been speaking to him about what may have happened during his nearly four days in captivity.
Police have said his grandfather may have stolen millions of dollars from drug dealers, but they have declined to elaborate and haven’t said whether the kidnappers sought a ransom.
Police said Monday they interviewed “several persons of interest” in hopes of gaining clues to the identity of gunmen who abducted the boy last week. Two gunmen posed as police officers, bound Cole’s mother and her boyfriend, then took the boy Wednesday, authorities have said.
The boy was dropped off Saturday night in a residential neighborhood near downtown Las Vegas and was noticed by a bus driver taking disabled passengers to their homes.
At a police news conference, bus driver Julio Diaz said his attention was drawn to a little boy wandering alone at 10:30 p.m.
“It got my attention that a boy like that would be … wandering alone,” Diaz said.
Diaz said Cole came to the bus and asked if Diaz could take him home. Diaz said he thought “something was not right.”
“He said he was left there. That’s when I realized it was a police matter,” Diaz said.
“The good thing, he wasn’t shy about asking for help. I think he knew that he came to the right person,” Diaz said.
Neither police nor Cole’s father, Robert Puffinburger, would comment on Cole’s mother or Tinnemeyer, a carpenter who filed for bankruptcy in 2001.
