The Champaign County Sheriff’s Office posted a Facebook message Wednesday afternoon asking residents to help them locate three children they considering endangered.
“Statements the mother made to family members made us believe the children could be at risk,” Chief Deputy Rick Jordan said.
The mother, Stacie M. Snyder, and her boyfriend, James Haynes, were believed to have the children, Jordan said.
“They could have gotten out of the country, (the girls) could have been harmed, anything could have happened,” said Corben Hannah, the girls’ father.
Less than 24 hours after the post was made it was shared more than 1,200 times from the sheriff’s office Facebook page.
The post included information about a van Snyder and Haynes were believed to be driving.
“It spread like a bad disease,” Hannah said about the Facebook and social media news about the missing girls.
Law enforcement on Thursday morning in Lake City, Florida, pulled over the group and safely located the three little girls, Jordan said.
The girls were put in the custody of Lake City Children Services while the legal guardian drives to Florida to get them, he said.
Snyder, the children’s mother, was not the legal guardian of the girls, Jordan said. Snyder lost custody on Monday, Aug. 9, and was supposed to turn herself in Thursday to serve a county jail term, Jordan said.
Charges are possible against Snyder and Haynes in the case, Jordan said.
The Urbana nonprofit, Caring Kitchen, also helped the Hannah family with money and equipment, Jordan said, to make the trip to Florida to pick up the children.
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