Authorities have captured two teens they say stole an SUV with two children inside before abandoning them in below freezing temperatures.
Khyree Swift, 17, and an unidentified 16-year-old have been charged with kidnapping, the Clayton County Sheriff's Office said. Investigators said they tracked a stolen iPad to the home of one of the suspects, WSB-TV reported.
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Swift was arrested Friday by Riverdale police, according to jail records. He appeared in court later in the day and was denied bond, WSB-TV reported.
Swift told a judge he doesn't understand the allegations against him, according to the news station. His family told WSB-TV that Swift had nothing to do with the crime.
It is not clear when the other teen was captured.
Swift and the 16-year-old are accused of taking Precious Wilmer’s 2009 Chevy Equinox about 5 p.m. Wednesday from a QuikTrip on Riverdale Road.
Wilmer left her daughters, 1-month-old Ava Wilmer and 4-year-old Arya Davenport, in the SUV with the engine running while she went inside the convenience store, Clayton County police Sgt. Ashanti Marbury said.
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She came out of the store and saw her car being driven away with her children in the back seat, police said.
The girls were later found miles apart.
Georgia State University police Chief Joseph Spillane found Arya walking on the shoulder of a roadway near I-285 and Riverdale Road, police said.
Channel 2 photojournalist Brian Ferguson found Ava in the middle of South Fulton Parkway, still strapped in her car seat.
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At the time, the temperature was in the 20s, but it felt like the single digits.
The girls appeared to be OK, but were taken to Southern Regional Medical Center as a precaution.
Atlanta police later located Precious Wilmer’s SUV on Metropolitan Parkway.
In addition to kidnapping, Swift faces charges of theft by receiving stolen property, cruelty to children in the first degree and theft by taking.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution staff writers Steve Burns and Raisa Habersham contributed to this report
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