Dalton Hayes, 18, and his 13-year-old girlfriend Cheyenne Phillips, the teen crime couple, have been referred to as “Bonnie and Clyde” in local media.
A teen crime couple, dubbed “Bonnie and Clyde” by local media, have embarked on a crime spree across the South, stealing vehicles and pilfering checks. The teenage sweethearts were spotted in Florida, according to a report from The Washington Post.
Dalton Hayes, 18, and his 13-year-old girlfriend Cheyenne Phillips, have eluded authorities and are now believed to be traveling around in a stolen truck with two guns. Phillips allegedly convinced the boy and his family that she was 19, and disappeared with Hayes nearly two weeks ago after last being seen in Grayson County in Kentucky.
Norman Chaffins, the sheriff of Grayson County, did not want to tip off the teens by disclosing the specific town. He did, however, make perfectly clear that the mood of the investigation and hunt will soon change if the teens do not turn up and turn themselves in.
“There’s going to come a time when we’re not going to see him as an 18-year-old kid,” Chaffins said. “We’re going to see him as someone who’s stolen three vehicles with two handguns in them, and the outcome is not going to be good for either one of them if they don’t turn themselves in.”
Hayes and Phillips simply disappeared on Jan. 3 from their small hometown in western Kentucky, according to Sheriff Chaffins sheriff. The authorities believe the teen crime couple have traveled to South Carolina and Georgia.
Hayes’ mother is pleading with the young couple to turn themselves in and “face the consequences.”
“I pretty much cry myself to sleep every night worrying about where they are and if a police officer or any random individual tries to pull them over and isn’t so nice and hurts them,” Tammy Martin said.
The two had been a couple for around three months, and by the time her son realized she was a mere 13, “he was already done in love with her,” his mother said.
“She (Cheyenne) would go in and write checks, and she would come out with cigarettes and stuff, so I didn’t have any reason not to believe she wasn’t 19. Because normally you can’t buy cigarettes when you’re 13 years old,” Martin said.
Hayes faces burglary and theft charges from last year in his home county, according to Grayson County court records. He was planning to be at the local judicial center on Jan. 5 to find out if a grand jury had indicted him on the charges, according to his mother. But, she says his case had not yet come up. Now, he’s gone.
However, Sheriff Chaffins is concerned the couple’s behavior is “becoming increasingly brazen and dangerous.”
“They’re going on people’s property,” Sheriff Chaffins said, adding that without money, “they’re going to get desperate.” “They’re forging checks to get money. … They could have stopped in Kentucky, but they didn’t.”
Chaffins believes Hayes is calling the shots, which has thus far been pretty successful. They have twice eluded authorities in close calls, despite crashing a stolen truck and hiding only in a patch of woods. The couple stole another truck and quickly made their escape.
If the South Carolina pattern holds, the two will be attempting to pass stolen or bogus checks in a Wal-Mart somewhere in Florida. They were seen in a vehicle that apparently was stolen from Kentucky, the sheriff said.
Martin said her son texted her a few days after the couple left South Carolina and said they were in Mississippi. But they were spotted soon after that in Kentucky.
“He was just trying to throw me off,” she said. “I’m sure he thought that I would call the police and tell them where he was.”
The longer the chase goes on, the more serious the situation becomes, says Chaffins.
“This is not a game to us,” Chaffins said. “Our biggest fear is that Dalton is not going to stop for the police. He’s going to run every time they approach him.”
