TUPELO – A man wanted for kidnapping his grandkids in Shannon and heading to Kentucky two years ago has finally been returned to Lee County to face felony charges.
Douglas Mills, 54, of Barbourville, Kentucky, was tripped up in mid-February when he was pulled over for a traffic stop by a Kentucky state trooper. A check revealed Mills was a fugitive from Lee County, wanted on a capias arrest warrant from June 2024. He was arrested and booked into the Knox County, Kentucky, Detention Center just before 3 p.m. on Feb. 20.
“At first he refused to be extradited (back to Mississippi),” said Lee County Sheriff’s Office Chief Investigator Scotty Reedy. “But late last week, he signed the waiver of extradition. It took us a little while because of the weekend, but we sent officers up there to get him and bring him back.”
Mills was booked into the Lee County Adult Jail around 5 p.m. Tuesday, March 25.
The kidnapping took place on March 7, 2023, when Mills arrived at his biological daughter’s house in Shannon around 9 a.m. Police say he forced his way into the house and, while brandishing a gun, took his three grandchildren — ages 2, 6 and 8. Mills and his two female accomplices — Vanessa Hensley Cox, 47, of Flat Lick, Kentucky, and Shelia Michelle Hood, 52, of Gray, Kentucky — got in the car and began the seven-and-a-half-hour trek back to eastern Kentucky. A person close to the investigation described the women as Mills’ ex-wife and his new girlfriend.
The suspects were about an hour away from their destination when a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer, alerted to the kidnapping and given a description of the car, pulled them over around 4:40 p.m. the same day. They were stopped on I-75 in Tennessee about 15 miles south of the Kentucky state line, and more than 400 miles from Shannon
While the children were quickly returned to their mother, it took more than a week to get Mills and his cohorts back to Lee County. Mills was initially held on a $1 million bond. The bond for the women was set at $250,000. All three eventually bonded out and returned to Kentucky.
A Lee County grand jury in June 2023 indicted all three suspects on three counts of kidnapping apiece. Hood secured a local attorney, returned to Tupelo for her arraignment in July 2023 and was allowed to remain free on the same $50,000 bond.
Mills and Cox did not respond to the request to return to be arraigned. In June 2024, Lee County Circuit Court issued a capias warrant for their arrest. The court order says they are to be held without bond until they can be arraigned. At press time, a date for Mills’ hearing had not been set.
Meanwhile, Cox remains a fugitive.
“We’re still looking for her,” Reedy said. “She’s still somewhere in Kentucky.”
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