Kids taken from foster home found safe
Police: Parents held after taking children at gunpoint
BOONE, North Carolina (CNN) -- The North Carolina couple accused of kidnapping their children from foster care at gunpoint were taken into custody Wednesday in Grayson County, Virginia, authorities said.
The two children were unharmed, said sheriff Mark Shook of Watauga County, North Carolina. James Canter, 29, Alisha Ann Chambers, 18, and two of Canter's cousins who had been traveling with them were taken into custody without incident, Shook said.
A five-day search came to an end just across the Virginia state line, about 27 miles from Boone, where it began Saturday.
The children -- 11-month-old Breanna Chambers and her 2-year-old brother Paul -- arrived in Boone about 2:30 p.m. Wednesday at the sheriff's department. Child Protective Services will decide if they will return to their foster family, Shook said.
A female sheriff's deputy and another person were seen lifting the children from an SUV and transferring them to a van.
"They're beautiful kids, just beautiful children," Shook said. "It's just a blessing to see, and I thank God about it."
He said he tried to put the children at ease when he met them and felt "very emotional" when they were found.
"Just a lot of relief," he said. "I'm a parent myself, and I just couldn't imagine what these kids were going through, what the foster parents went through not having those kids with them."
Shook said he had notified the foster family.
"They were very, very relieved and excited," he said.
Shook identified the two adults found with the couple and the children as Sheron Woodards and Jeff Brown -- distant cousins of Canter.
The Watauga County sheriff said investigators got a break when one of Canter's family members told them Wednesday morning that the couple was at another relative's home in Jefferson, North Carolina, about 20 miles north of Boone in Ashe County.
"We missed them by about 30 minutes this morning," Shook said.
But family members at the home gave deputies a description of a black, two-door, 2000 model Ford that the couple was using. They also told authorities Woodards and Brown were with them and said they were headed for either Grayson County or Knoxville, Tennessee.
Shook said they alerted police in Virginia and Tennessee, and a little later, deputies from Ashe, Watauga and Grayson counties located the Ford "behind a residence on Schoolhouse Road in Whitetop, Virginia." Whitetop is near the Virginia-North Carolina state line and very close to the point where those two states meet Tennessee.
The sheriff said there was no struggle, but Canter had shaved his head to change his appearance and initially gave the deputies a false name.
Shook said investigators believe the couple received help during their days as fugitives from Canter's close-knit and extensive family. No weapons were found when the couple was taken into custody Wednesday.
Parents face drug charges
Authorities say the episode began Saturday when Canter and Chambers -- both wanted on methamphetamine charges -- went to the foster home in Boone, pulled a handgun on the foster mother and sped away with the two children.
Canter and Chambers fled to Tennessee, where they led a Johnson County sheriff's deputy on a high-speed chase, only to escape when they ditched their car and ran into the mountainous woods. Inside the car, investigators found a rifle and a handgun.
The children had been with the foster family for about eight months, since police raided the couple's home and found an apparent methamphetamine lab.
The foster mother, who asked that her identity be concealed, told CNN that her family "was just having a quiet Saturday morning" when she heard a car outside and "got up to see who it was."
"I opened the door and realized it was Alisha and said, 'Hey, what you need? What can I do for you?'" she said.
"And they started pushing their way in. James said that they were here for the kids. They wanted their kids, and I started to resist and started to push them out, but James pulled a gun out, and they came on in."
Within moments, the couple had Paul and Breanna, "and they were gone," she said.
"They don't have very good judgment," the foster mother said of the parents. "They're influenced by the drugs and the lifestyle that they lead."
The home the family had lived in "was a single-wide mobile home," Shook said. "The condition was very unkempt, trash all over the floor. Parts of the meth lab, the toxic waste and the chemicals were sitting right beside the baby's formula."
Officials told CNN that tests showed the 2-year-old had meth in his system and that Alisha Chambers' mother and brother are both in jail on drug charges.
