PANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla. — Two teenage Kentucky sweethearts suspected in a string of stolen vehicles and pilfered checks across the South have been taken into custody in Florida, authorities said Sunday.
Dalton Hayes, 18, and his 13-year-old girlfriend, Cheyenne Phillips, were arrested without incident about 12:10 a.m. Sunday in Panama City Beach, according to authorities in both states. The two had eluded police in multiple states while raising concern about their increasingly bold behavior.
“I spoke to Dalton, and he was very scared, and he wanted to come home,” said Norman Chaffins, sheriff of Grayson County, Ky., where the teens live. “He wanted me to come bring him home.”
Chaffins said the teens were getting by on some cash found in a truck stolen in Georgia.
Authorities said the U.S. Marshals Service and Panama City Beach police found Hayes and Phillips asleep in a 2001 Toyota Tundra that was stolen in Georgia. Officers surrounded the vehicle, and both Hayes and Phillips were taken into custody.
Chaffins said that the teens should be extradited to Kentucky by the end of the week.
In Kentucky, the two teens will face the same charges, including burglary, theft, criminal trespassing and criminal mischief, Chaffins said. Phillips will face charges in juvenile court because she is a minor.
Chaffins said he was relieved the two had been captured peacefully. If the couple had not been found asleep and surrounded, he said, they might have run again.
“I think me and the family and many other law enforcement agencies were not getting a good feeling about how this was going to turn out,” Chaffins said.
Hayes and Phillips began their run from the law this month when they vanished from their small hometown in western Kentucky. Authorities think their travels took them to South Carolina and Georgia.
