YATES CENTER — A weekend broadcast on the "America's Most Wanted" television program led to the arrest in southeast Kansas of a West Virginia couple wanted there on charges of sexually abusing children.
Barry D. and Jennifer White were arrested Saturday night in a mobile home at a trailer park in Toronto, Kan., Woodson County Undersheriff David Waddell said. They appeared Monday morning in Woodson County District Court and were being held without bond in the county jail.
The Whites were indicted Feb. 14 by a grand jury in Mercer County, W.Va., with Barry White accused of 60 counts of sexual assault and 60 of sexual abuse by a custodian, and Jennifer White with 20 counts of child neglect resulting in injury.
Waddell said the couple apparently made their way to Toronto about four weeks ago, after earlier stops in Pittsburg and Iola. The undersheriff said they told neighbors they lost their home in a recent fire, explaining why they had few belongings.
The "America's Most Wanted" episode on the Fox network began airing at 8 p.m. Saturday, and about 20 minutes later the sheriff's department got a call from George Thomas, who had met the couple. Waddell also had been watching the show at home, and a deputy saw it in the sheriff's office.
"Mr. White has some very identifiable tattoos, so we were pretty sure he was the one they were talking about," Waddell said.
Deputies got a floor plan of the mobile home and entered it shortly before midnight, finding the Whites awake.
"I think we caught them by surprise," said Waddell.
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