Two arrested in case of kidnapped Tennessee mother, daughters

TUPELO, Miss./NASHVILLE, Tennessee (Reuters) - The wife of a man suspected of kidnapping a Tennessee mother and her three daughters has admitted she drove them to a house in Mississippi where the bodies of the mother and oldest daughter were later found, authorities said on Tuesday.

Teresa Mayes, wife of Adam Mayes, was arrested Sunday along with his mother, Mary Mayes. Both are in Hardeman County Jail in Tennessee.

Meanwhile, police in two states and the FBI continued a manhunt for Adam Mayes, 35, who is suspected of taking the two surviving daughters with him on the run.

Jo Ann Bain, 31, and her oldest daughter, Adrienne, 14, were dead, and the two younger Bain girls, Alexandria, 12, and Kyliyah, 8, were believed held by Mayes. Investigators have described him as a family friend or an uncle figure to the girls.

In an interview with Reuters, Teresa Mayes' sister Bobbi Booth said Teresa told her on Saturday that Adam Mayes had killed Jo Ann and Adrienne Bain.

Booth said she immediately contacted the Hardeman County sheriff's department. Investigators told her they knew everything and Teresa Mayes was not a suspect. Booth said she believes her sister, who is mentally challenged, is not at fault.

"My sister does not have sense enough to do what they're accusing her of," Booth said, describing Teresa as a caring woman who loves children but is "mentally slow."

Authorities believe Adam Mayes is still in north Mississippi and they are focusing their search there, said FBI spokesman Joel Siskovic. "Law enforcement agencies all believe they are alive (and) that they are with him. Our primary goal is their recovery," Siskovic said.

"That part of north Mississippi is pretty rural, it's rough terrain. There are locations back there that only people who have been there know, so we're digging through a lot of that territory, checking for signs that someone has been there."

Teresa Mayes, 31, has been charged with four counts of especially aggravated kidnapping and held on a $500,000 bond, said Hardeman County Circuit Court Clerk Linda Fulghum.

Adam Mayes' mother Mary, 65, has been charged with four counts of conspiracy to commit especially aggravated kidnapping and held on $300,000 bond, the clerk said.

The two were arrested late on Sunday in Union County, Mississippi, and transported across the state line to Hardeman County, where they were booked early on Monday, said Union County Sheriff Jimmy Edwards.

"We developed information that led us to believe that they were a part of it," he said.

An affidavit filed with the Hardeman County Court said Teresa Mayes told agents of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation she drove the victims from Hardeman County, Tennessee, to Union County, Mississippi.

Both Teresa and Mary Mayes told investigators they saw Adam Mayes digging in the backyard in Mississippi on April 27, the day of the disappearance. Neither woman appeared to know the whereabouts of Mayes or the two Bain children, Edwards said.

Bain's husband reported the four missing from their rural Tennessee home on April 27. Mayes, who was at their home to help them move to Arizona, was quickly identified as a suspect.

Booth said that she first met the Mayes family when she and her sister were living in Florida with their parents. Adam Mayes courted her sister and the two married around 2000, Booth said.

Almost immediately Adam Mayes forbade his wife to maintain contact with her, she said. Mayes abused drugs and alcohol and kept Teresa Mayes around mainly because she cared for his ailing father.

"I seen him (Adam Mayes) in October 2001 ... and it was the same old thing, acting stupid, not wanting to take a bath, wanting to get high," said Booth. "He was abusive with my sister, but you could tell even then she was scared of him."

The first time the two sisters had spoken in more than a decade was when Teresa Mayes called Booth on Thursday. At first the conversation was casual but by Saturday Mayes told Booth that her husband had committed the murders.

Booth said Adam Mayes used to beat her sister. She said he apparently sold his motorcycle before the Bain family's disappearance and may have used the money to buy a used car and flee the area.

Teresa Mayes told Booth she thought Jo Ann Bain was having an affair with Adam Mayes.

Tennessee authorities have described Teresa Mayes as Adam Mayes' ex-wife, but Booth said she was not aware of a divorce and they were still living together.

(Editing by Mary Wisniewski and Daniel Trotta.)

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