An FBI agent says an Illinois man accused of kidnapping a 2-year-old Phoenix boy told agents after being arrested that he and a woman companion disagreed about letting the child go.
FBI Agent Anthony Oldham testified Tuesday during a preliminary hearing that concluded with U.S. Magistrate Michael Mignella Jr. finding probable cause for kidnapping charges against the pair.Dennis Elwood Mills, 45, of Pekin, Ill., and Jennifer Rebecca Day, 19, of St. Louis, are accused of kidnapping Michael Lininger from a Phoenix supermarket parking lot when they commandeered the car of the boy's mother on Aug. 14.
Oldham said Mills told agents he did not know the boy was in the car until they were about a block away from the parking lot.
Mills told agents that, after wrestling the boy's mother, Michele Lininger out of the car, he got in and drove off, not knowing whether Day had been able to get in, Oldham testified.
Oldham said Day had gotten the back door open, and that Michele Lininger's two daughters, ages 4 and 7, had jumped out of the car, but the mother could not reach her son, who was strapped into a car seat.
While racing away from the parking lot, Mills called out to Day, asking whether she was in the car.
She told him, "I've got my little boy with me. We'll call him Stevie," Oldham testified.
Mills told agents that Day earlier had talked to him about kidnapping her own son, who does not live with her, Oldham said.
The FBI declined to release any further information about Day's son after the hearing.
Oldham testified that Mills told agents he wanted to let the little boy go, but Day didn't want to, Oldham said.
Day's attorney, Thomas Hoidal, said she does have a son, but he does not know where the boy lives.
The pair told agents that after the alleged kidnapping, they went to California and Nevada before being captured after a chase in Utah two days later. The boy was found uninjured in the back seat of the car, and he was reunited with his family that evening.
The case now goes to a grand jury for possible indictments.