Mom of Ky. teen suspected in crime spree arrested

Amy Stallings, WHAS-TV, and Bailey Loosemore, The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal | USA TODAY

LEITCHFIELD, Ky. — The mother of one teen accused in a multi-state crime spree was arrested in Kentucky, a day after her daughter and the child's boyfriend were taken into custody in Florida.

Sherry Peters is accused of taking her 13-year-old daughter, Cheyenne Phillips, from the house of Cheyenne's great-grandparents Jan. 3 when she did not have the authority to do so, according to an arrest warrant provided by Chief Deputy Bo Thorpe of Grayson County Detention Center. Peters was charged with custodial interference and is being held on a $50,000 cash bond in the county jail.

Grayson County Sheriff Norman Chaffins said his department served Peters the warrant Monday after Cheyenne's father, Shawn Phillips, filed a complaint with the county court.

Peters has declined media interview requests and is scheduled to meet with a lawyer Thursday, Thorpe said. A county court official said she's scheduled for a hearing Thursday morning.

In an interview the day her daughter was found, Peters described herself as estranged from Cheyenne but pledged to become a bigger part of her life.

"We're going to do our best ... to help her through the troubles that she has probably has gotten into out there and get her back to her 13-year-old normal-age life," she said then.

Cheyenne and her boyfriend of three months, Dalton Hayes, 18, of Leitchfield, have been accused of setting out Jan. 4 on a two-week, more than 1,300-mile crime spree in which they stole three vehicles, pilfered checks and evaded police across at least five Southern states. The pair were arrested a little after midnight Sunday in Panama City Beach, Fla., sleeping in front of an International House of Pancakes restaurant in the third pickup that police say they took.

Grayson County authorities have not yet nailed down exactly where the couple went and what they did in their 14 days on the lam.

They are expected to return to Leitchfield, city of almost 7,000 residents about 60 miles southwest of Louisville, Ky., later this week to face charges. Hayes, who was sent to an all-boys group home as a juvenile after getting into earlier trouble, waived his extradition rights Monday in a Bay County, Fla., courtroom.

Cheyenne has been taken to what a Florida Department of Children & Families spokeswoman called a safe location until arrangements are made with her family. She will face charges in juvenile court in Grayson County.

Peters was not supposed to contact her children, said Glendon Hart, who along with his wife, Loraine Hart, has raised Cheyenne and her two older brothers since Peters lost custody of her children when Cheyenne was 3.

But Glendon Hart said Cheyenne left their house on a Saturday night to go out with someone she called a friend, instead hopping into a car with her mother and not returning by her 10 p.m. curfew. Cheyenne's father, Shawn Phillips, is the Harts' grandson.

"We love her to death," Loraine Hart said of Cheyenne. "She's a sweet little girl. The night she didn't come home, we were up all night."

Loraine Hart said she had told Cheyenne that she was too young to date and that the seventh-grader was allowed to hang out alone with a boy only under her great-grandparents' roof.

But Hayes' mother, Tammy Martin, said Cheyenne was hanging out with her son at their house, watching movies and doing what she called normal teenage things. Martin said the girl told them she was 19.

Cheyenne never took her great-grandparents up on their offer, and when she did introduce them to Hayes, she called him her friend, not her boyfriend. The Harts said Monday that they have not spoken with Cheyenne since she left.

"We did the best with her that we could," Glendon Hart said. "Anything she wanted, we gave. She's like a daughter to us."

Contributing: The Associated Press