Abington Kids Found Safe, Mom Arrested After Amber Alert Issued
ABINGTON (CBS) -- Police say two Abington children are safe and their mother is in custody after an Amber Alert was issued Thursday afternoon.
Police say 33-year-old Bruna Gomes knocked on the door of the children's father's apartment around 9 a.m. Thursday morning, announcing that she was Abington police. She then sprayed pepper spray in a caretaker's eyes before physically removing the children and fleeing.
Abington Police called officers in Yarmouth just after noon after they received a ping on Gomes' phone in that area.
Massachusetts State Police activated an Amber Alert before 3 p.m.
Just over an hour later, an officer spotted the van in heavy traffic on Route 28 in Yarmouth. The officer turned his cruiser around, but the van was gone.
Police searched for two hours but could not find Gomes or the van.
The hotel owner at Econo Lodge in West Yarmouth called police around 3:30 p.m. to say Gomes and the children had just checked in. The hotel owner's son, 17-year-old Sanket Bhagat, says Gomes and the kids were swimming in the pool just ten minutes before he saw the Amber Alert.
"I didn't know what to do," Bhagat said. "I was running up the stairs, skipping three at a time, yelling, 'Dad, dad, we have to call the cops!'"
Officers opened the door to her hotel room, found her inside and took Gomes into custody. The Amber Alert was then canceled.
Bhagat says the real hero is technology. "If I didn't have my phone, if we didn't have Amber Alerts, she would have stayed the night, checked out the next morning and no one would have known about it," he said.
Gomes will appear in court in Brockton Friday morning. She will face parental kidnapping and home invasion charges.
The two children were reunited with their father in Abington late Thursday night.
