Kentucky Teens Crime Spree: On The Run 12 Days, Police Hunts Dalton Hayes, Cheyenne Phillips, Police Worried About Missing Gun? [PHOTOS + VIDEO]

Kentucky Teens Crime Spree - According to police, they are currently searching for two Kentucky teens who have stolen a truck and embarked on a multi-state crime spree, leaving behind them a string of stolen vehicles and pilfered checks, reports CBS affiliate WKYT. So far, the Kentucky teens' crime spree suspects have eluded capture.

It is believed that they are driving a stolen truck with two guns in it. These two guns inside the stolen truck from Henry County are now causing authorities distress, according to CBS News.

The Kentucky teens' crime spree suspects, Dalton Hayes, 18, and Cheyenne Phillips, 13 - who was able to pretend and deceive her boyfriend into thinking she was 19 - had only been dating for about three months. They have already been missing for 12 days.

According to authorities Thursday, the Kentucky teens' crime spree seem to have taken place across the South, and during the spree, the teens have managed to steal at least two vehicles, one of which had the two guns.

One of the two vehicles which they are accused of stealing is a neighbor's red Toyota pickup truck. A security video outside a Walmart store in Manning, South Carolina was found nine days into the disappearance of the Kentucky teens' crime spree suspects. Even the couple themselves were reportedly captured on the video, showing them entering the store, reports NBC News.

Authorities said this stolen truck was found in Georgia yesterday.

After vanishing on Jan. 3 from their small hometown in western Kentucky, authorities believe the Kentucky teens' crime spree suspects traveled to South Carolina and Georgia, according to the Associated Press. Cheyenne's father was the one who reported the teens missing on Jan. 3.

According to South Carolina police, the station they believe the teens tried to use forged checks was at a Walmart in SC Wednesday.

"It is imperative that these two be located and apprehended as their behavior is becoming increasingly brazen and dangerous," said Grayson County Sheriff's Office in a statement of the Kentucky teens' crime spree.

Meanwhile, Tammy Martin, Hayes' mother, told reporters that her son just started dating Cheyenne. She added that the family didn't know her to be only 13.

She added that her son texted her Jan. 6 and said, "Mommy, don't worry. I'm fine, okay - plenty of money and food. Love you, good night, sweet dreams."

She has already urged the Kentucky teens' crime spree suspects to surrender and simply "face the consequences" of their actions.

"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," Martin told reporters.

Martin said the 13-year-old girl acted as if 19, and the family believed her.

Martin said that 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."

By the time they found out she was a minor, Martin said her son "was already done in love with her."

Apparently, the Kentucky teens' crime spree was a way for Hayes to run away from trouble back home. He is reportedly facing burglary and theft charges in his home Grayson County, after an arrest late last year. On Jan. 5, he was supposed to be at the local judicial center to find out if a grand jury had indicted him on the charges.

Though his case did not come up, by that time the teens were gone and probably beginning the Kentucky teens' crime spree already.

On Thursday, the couple ditched the first truck that they stole in Henry County, Georgia, south of Atlanta, and are now believed to have stolen a silver Toyota Tundra.

According to Grayson County Sheriff Norman Chaffins, the vehicle had .45- and .38-caliber handguns in the back seat.

Chaffins added that the couple's behavior has "becoming increasingly brazen and dangerous." He said that both involved in the Kentucky teens' crime spree are now suspects in at least the two auto thefts. Hayes is also wanted on charges of custodial interference. This includes luring Cheyenne, a minor, away from her legal guardians.

"They're going on people's property," said Chaffins of the Kentucky teens' crime spree suspects. "They're forging checks to get money. ... They could have stopped in Kentucky, but they didn't."

And since they have no source of money Chaffins he added that "they're going to get desperate."

"We're hoping the two of them have enough sense not to do something with that gun and hoping it never comes to that," Chaffins told NBC station WAVE of Louisville.

In Kentucky, the Kentucky teens' crime spree suspects were able to evade law officers even after crashing their first stolen vehicle and hid in the woods. Later, they stole another truck nearby, said Chaffins.

According to Chaffins, Hayes could be the one calling the shots in the Kentucky teens' crime spree, especially since he already had run-ins with the law as a juvenile.

"There's going to come a time when we're not going to see him as an 18-year-old kid," said Chaffins. "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."

The Kentucky teens' crime spree situation is only getting more serious as time passes, he added.

"This is not a game to us," said Chaffins. "Our biggest fear is that Dalton is not going to stop for the police. He's going to run every time they approach him."

Despite the grave warnings against the Kentucky teens' crime spree rebels, Chaffins said that "Whatever it is, it can be worked through. That's what we want to tell these young people - we want them to come home."

Tags

Kentucky