GUNTOWN, miss. — Hope was fading that two young sisters abducted from their Tennessee home would be found alive two weeks after they vanished. Their kidnapper had killed their mother and sister, and he was armed with a rifle, sawed-off shotgun and pistol as officers closed in.
Adam Mayes could have killed them days ago, could have left them in the woods as he fled for another hideout, could have shot them in desperation as he was surrounded by officers.
Yet on Friday, 12-year-old Alexandria and 8-year-old Kyliyah Bain went home to their father alive, with no apparent injuries other than being tired, scared and itchy from poison ivy. They also told the officers who found them that they had not had food or water for three days, said Mississippi Highway Patrol Master Sgt. Steve Crawford.
Beverly Goodman, the aunt of the slain mother, Jo Ann Bain, said she was relieved the girls were home but saddened by the killings of Bain and Bain’s 14-year-old daughter, Adrienne.
“He’s been missing for so long. How do you hide out from 350 million people?” Goodman said. “I thought they were going to find them dead — the girls and him — so I am very, very relieved that those girls are home and they’re not dead, like I figured they were gonna be.”
At one point, Mayes had claimed to be the girls’ father. That might be why he spared them. It also might be that although he wanted to escape prosecution, he didn’t think the girls were better off dead. He was close to the family, described as an uncle-like figure who smiled cheek-to-cheek with the girls in Facebook photos.
“He probably developed an attachment to them, and even the most vicious of killers can separate the world into people they care about, people they detest and people they don’t care about,” said James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University.
Authorities said Mayes, 35, killed Jo Ann Bain and 14-year-old Adrienne on April 27 in Whiteville, Tenn.
Mayes’ wife, Teresa Mayes, is charged with murder in the killings. She told investigators she saw her husband kill the mother and oldest girl, then drove him, the younger children and the bodies to Mississippi, according to court documents. His mother, Mary Mayes, is charged in the kidnapping but maintains she is not guilty.
The girls were released from a hospital, officials said Friday, and reunited with relatives in Tennessee. Family spokesman David Livingston said their father, Gary Bain, was thrilled to have them back, but “you can understand that he is extremely distraught over the loss of his wife and daughter.”
Funeral arrangements for Jo Ann and Adrienne Bain had not yet been made.
