Woman's 'Bizarre Behavior' Leads to the Discovery of 8 Abducted Children 2,000 Miles from Their Home
Police in Northern California have rescued eight children who went missing from Arkansas and their kidnappings were solved after their alleged captor displayed some “bizarre” behavior, officers said.
In the city of Anderson in Shasta County on Saturday morning, police say a concerned citizen saw a woman with out-of-state plates and felt that something wasn’t right.
The person phoned the Anderson Police Department about the situation and officers were dispatched to a convenience store for a welfare check.
In a statement posted on Facebook, police said the call was placed at around 12:30 a.m. on Saturday morning.
The concerned citizen was worried about what officers said was a “group of six children and the woman they were with, due to the woman displaying bizarre behavior.”
Police continued:
“APD Officers responded to the location and located the woman and children in the parking lot and found them to be associated with an Arkansas plated Dodge pickup.
“Officers contacted the woman and identified her as Trista Fullerton, age 36, of Rogers, Arkansas. A records check revealed Trista to have a felony warrant for her arrest for the abduction of eight children.”
Fullerton was quickly detained by officers at the scene on the warrant. She was also questioned about the location of the two other children she was accused of abducting.
“Officers learned that the children were located at a residence in the Cottonwood area, and requested the assistance of the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office in locating them,” police said.
Officers from both agencies worked to find the children somewhere safe to stay while Fullerton was arrested.
Each of the eight children had protective custody warrants against Fullerton, who is the biological mother of each of them.
It is not clear exactly why, but her parental rights to the children were terminated by a court.
Police said she took each of them from their respective foster homes and left Arkansas with them.
KHBS in Fort Smith, Arkansas, reported Fullerton pleaded guilty in separate domestic battery cases in 2021 and also pleaded guilty to violating a no-contact order case the following year.
Police in Anderson said Fullerton was booked into the Shasta County Jail while the children are each transported back to Arkansas to be with their legal guardians, KAIT-TV reported.
Officers also shared photos of the vehicle Fullerton was driving as well as a photo of her handcuffed on a bench in the county jail.
The Anderson Police Department thanked the person who phoned them and asked the public to remain vigilant when encountering a situation that feels peculiar.
The department’s Facebook page used the tag “#seesomethingsaysomething.”
Anderson, California, is located about 15 miles south of the city of Redding and about 2,000 miles from Northwest Arkansas.
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