Scammer
Banned
The last confirmed sighting of Brittany Smith was last Friday, when she was captured on Walmart surveillance cameras.
[video]http://cnn.com/video/?/video/crime/2010/12/10/sot.brittany.smith.found.cnn[/video]
A tip from someone in a San Francisco supermarket led police to a Virginia girl and her alleged abductor ending a nationwide search with an arrest, police said.
Someone in a Safeway store recognized Jeffrey Scott Easley, 32, and Brittany Mae Smith, 12, on Friday afternoon from the many times they had been featured on CNN, said San Francisco Police Officer Albie Esparza.
Police were called, and the two were found shortly thereafter outside the store -- more than 2,300 miles from where the girl was reported missing four days earlier -- Roanoke County, Virginia police Chief Ray Lavinder said Friday evening. Police in San Francisco then contacted their counterparts in Virginia with the news.
Esparza said Brittany was turned over to California's Child Protective Services division after she was found. She has no visible injuries, has been in touch with family members and should return soon to Virginia, according to Lavinder. Easley did not resist arrest, he added.
"It's a fantastic sense of relief, and I know in my heart that it's due to information that you folks put out," Lavinder said, thanking the media. "It's a party atmosphere, believe me."
Lavinder said Virginia police did not know how the pair reached California. Brittany knew that her mother had died but Lavinder said he did not know how she found out.
Police issued an Amber Alert for Brittany on Monday after finding the body of 41-year-old Tina Smith, the girl's mother and Easley's girlfriend, inside her Salem, Virginia, home.
A few hours before the announcement that they'd been found Friday evening, police released new video showing Brittany Smith and Easley shopping at Walmart on the same day, they say, her mother was likely killed.
The pair on December 3 bought a blue, domed tent while at that Walmart in Salem, Virginia, which had been the last confirmed sighting of either Brittany Smith or Easley.
Lavinder said that authorities found a tent within walking distance of the northern California store where the two were spotted.
Experts now believe Tina Smith was killed exactly one week earlier, the same day her daughter and boyfriend went on their shopping trip, Lavinder said Friday.
Three days later, police got a phone call from Tina Smith's co-workers, saying they were worried that she hadn't shown up for work. They found her body inside her Salem home, and issued an Amber Alert for her Brittany after learning she wasn't at school.
"That's probably as close as medical science is going to be able to give us," Lavinder said of estimates that Tina Smith died between late the morning of December 3 and sometime that afternoon.
No one has been arrested in the homicide investigation related to Tina Smith's death, though Lavinder said that authorities do want to talk with Easley. The chief has said Easley met Tina Smith online this summer, then moved into the family home in October.
Authorities said they do not know if the girl went willingly with Easley, who was arrested on a felony abduction warrant.
His car was found relatively early in the search, but police said late Friday that they still had not yet tracked down a silver 2005 Dodge Neon four-door sedan with Virginia tag XKF-2365 that belonged to the girl's dead mother.
Lavinder said late Friday that four detectives from Roanoke County would head out to San Francisco as soon as possible -- two to escort Brittany Smith back home, and another two to prepare for the eventual return of Easley.
It was also possible that one of Brittany's relatives also may head to California, the chief said. Police did plan to query the seventh-grader, but Lavinder said that the time frame for such questioning was "flexible."
Earlier this week, one of the girl's aunts, Angel Spangler, had pleaded with Easley to "do the right thing" so that the seventh-grader could be attend her mother's still unplanned funeral.
"Brittany, we want to have good times with you again, and we want you to come home," another aunt, Rhonda Blanton, said on Thursday. "Mr. Easley, please let Brittany come home for Christmas."
Easley's return date is less certain.
Lavinder noted that the suspect would have to go before a California court before he could be extradited. Easley could head east relatively soon if he waived extradition, or the process could be delayed for weeks if he contested the return.
Back east, the girl's great aunt told HLN's Nancy Grace on Friday night that Brittany already had talked to her father, and that there was widespread relief and joy from Salem to South Boston, Virginia, where many relatives live.
"Everybody here is just elated," said Lois Choquette, who is the late Tina Smith's aunt. "It's been a terrible thing, but we are just so thankful."
