An Amber Alert had been issued as their mother's bipolar disorder raised fears for the toddlers' safety.
By Associated Press
Published July 1, 2003
BONIFAY - Two toddlers were found unharmed Monday about 16 hours after they were taken by their mother, who drove her car through a sliding-glass door at their grandmother's South Florida house and abducted them following a struggle with family members, authorities said.
Lorena Montano, 3, and Moises Montano, 2, were found in a motel in Bonifay, north of Panama City in the Florida Panhandle, on Monday evening, police said.
The children were examined at Doctors Memorial Hospital in Bonifay and then were taken in by a local domestic violence advocate until the grandmother retrieves them.
Their mother, Nora Montano, 32, was in custody and an arrest warrant was being prepared on charges of kidnapping and robbery home invasion, said Miramar police Officer Bill Robertson.
The children's biological father, Jose Montano, was also detained for questioning, Robertson said.
Authorities earlier had issued an Amber Alert about the abductions, fearing the children were in danger because of their mother's mental state.
Amber Alerts are named after Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old girl abducted and later found murdered in Texas. They are bulletins, distributed through radio and television broadcasts and electronic highway signs, on kidnapped children and their abductors.
The mother was tracked by her credit card, which she used at the hotel, said Bonifay police officer Thomas Locks. He said police believed the family was heading to Texas because they were driving a Chevrolet truck with Texas plates. Nora Montano is stationed at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio.
Holmes County sheriff's Officer Steven Lee said authorities told Nora Montano there was a problem with her credit card and asked her to come to the front desk. When she arrived, police arrested her. Lee said authorities then detained Jose Montano without incident in the motel room where the children had been sleeping.
"They seemed to be in good health. They were asleep. Once they woke up, they ran to the officers and seemed to be in good spirits," Lee said.
Early Monday morning in Miramar in South Florida, Montano had driven a car through the rear sliding-glass door at the house on an unfenced corner lot in a suburban neighborhood close to Interstate 75 and U.S. 27, police said.
The children's grandmother, Nora Sarria, said she and Karla Sarria, 25, were sleeping in their bedrooms at 2:30 a.m. when they heard a crash.
Montano and a man wearing camouflage and a ski mask rushed in, knocked over the children's aunt and took the children, Robertson said. "I jumped on his back, and I was grabbing and pulling him away from the children," Karla Sarria said. "He hit me with a forearm across the face." She sustained minor injuries.
Nora Sarria said her daughter has been detained under the Baker Act several times. The act allows involuntary commitment for psychiatric evaluation She said she obtained a restraining order against Montano last year because the daughter was aggressive and threatened her. Montano then took her children to Brunswick, Ga. Authorities there took them from Montano.
Georgia child welfare officials granted temporary custody of the children to Sarria in November, and Sarria was given permanent custody in January under a Glynn County, Ga., court order.
At the Army's Fort Sam Houston, Montano is assigned to the 187th Medical Battalion, 32nd Medical Brigade.
In May, she was withdrawn from a training course for the medical logistics and supply specialty, said fort spokesman Phil Reidinger. He would not say why Montano was "academically relieved" from the training course.
She is not on leave and had been expected to report to formation Monday, Reidinger said.
