The father of two children found dead Sunday morning in a Nebraska home was located and arrested in California Sunday evening.
Bellevue Police began looking for Adam Price, 34, after 3-year-old Theodore Price and 5-year-old Emily Price were found dead by friends of the family who went inside after police visited the home twice and found no reason to force entry, as CrimeOnline previously reported.
Sarpy County officials said that Price had been charged with two counts of child abuse resulting in death, KETV reported. He’s being held in California on a fugitive arrest warrant and was expected to appear in court on Monday, but the hearing was delayed until Tuesday.
Authorities have not yet released a cause of death for the children.
Police said they went to the home Saturday evening and earlier Sunday morning after receiving phone calls from the children’s mother, who lives in Illinois, “but did not observe exigent circumstances that would allow them to force entry into the home.”
“She said she hadn’t heard from them for a couple of days per court order to have contact with them. Officers responded here, had no contact at the door, attempted phone contact with Adam Price,” Bellevue Police Capt. Andy Jashinske said, according to WOWT.
The third visit to the home came just after 11 a.m. Sunday morning.
“I’m not sure if they forced entry or how they got in, but the friends were actually the individuals that found the children inside and they contacted police and we responded after that,” Jashinske said.
Price was arrested in Pacifica, California, south of San Francisco — nearly 24 hours away by car from Bellevue.
Court records show that Price and the children’s mother, Mary Nielson, filed for divorce in December and had been battling over custody. A judge awarded joint custody, with an order requiring the custodial parent at the time to allow contact with the kids from the other parent. Nielson was unable to contact them over the weekend and called police.
Nielson told The Daily Beast after police went to the house for a second time Sunday morning — and with the situation still “not sitting right with me” — she called a friend, who found the children dead in their beds.
“Our old neighbor actually saw Adam packing up all his stuff Thursday night,” Nielsen said. “It was kind of suspicious because he said he was going for a long weekend. The police said most of his clothes were gone. He took his personal computer but he had left his cell phone at the house.”
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[Featured image: Emily Price, Mary Nielson, and Theodore Price/GoFundMe]
