Texas Girl Allegedly Kidnapped by Mother Found Safe
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Jupiterimages/Thinkstock(HOUSTON) — An 11-year-old Texas girl who was the subject of an Amber Alert after police said she was was abducted by her mother, has been found safe, and her mother is in custody.
A Child Protective Services spokesperson in Trinity County told ABC News affiliate KTRK-TV in Houston that Savannah Hurley was found there Tuesday afternoon. No other details were immediately avaiable.
“It was a child custody thing,” Trinity County Chief Deputy Billy Patton told ABC News earlier Tuesday. “They were going to remove the kid from the mother and the grandmother got involved.”
Patton said that when authorities and Child Protective Services arrived at the house of the girl’s mother, Shelly Jean Hurley, 46, in The Woodlands, Texas, to take Savannah, the little girl was not there.
“The mother jumped in a car and headed to the grandmother’s house,” Patton said. “The grandmother gave the child to the mother and they were gone. They left and we had no idea which direction they went in.”
Patton would not say why CPS was taking Savannah away from her mother. Savannah’s maternal grandmother is in custody for allegedly interfering with child custody.
Hurley took off with Savannah in a white Ford pickup truck, but police found that car and said that Hurley had switched to a 1996 maroon Subaru Legacy station wagon with an Alabama license plate.
When police located the Legacy in Mesquite, just outside Dallas, neither Savannah nor her mother were found there.
Investigators said they believe the duo initially fled to The Woodlands area and started heading north, according to KTRK. They said they thought Hurley might have been planning to eventually take Savannah to Florida.
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