What appeared at first to be a runaway situation has landed two Lynchburg women in jail on child abduction charges, Lynchburg Police said Wednesday.
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Louise Pugliese, 47, and Ariel Odom, 20, were each charged with three counts of felony child abduction and are also facing other pending charges, police said in a news release.
Three children were reported missing from a Lynchburg foster home on June 10, police said.
Pugliese, the children’s biological mother, and Odom, a family friend, both contacted Lynchburg police about the situation.
Detectives from the Lynchburg Police Department investigated the case, along with Lynchburg Child Protective Services, the Pen Argyl, Penn., Police Department and Child Protective Services in Pennsylvania.
The children were located on Sunday in the Pen Argyl area, and police said at the time that it appeared the children had run away, having hitchhiked from Virginia.
Lynchburg Police said Wednesday that Pugliese and Odom had picked the children up from the foster home themselves, and kept them in a Lynchburg motel for several days.
They then rented a truck, and drove the children to Pennsylvania, police said.
Police said all three children are back in Lynchburg, and in the custody of Child Protective Services.
The additional charges against Pugliese and Odom stem from this case and two related crimes they reported, police said.
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