IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser.

Suspect arrested for allegedly abducting two daughters from home where two boys found dead

Donny Jackson, 40, was arrested after allegedly abducting his two daughters, who were later found safe. It is unclear what his relationship is to the two dead boys.
Get more newsLiveon

A man accused of abducting his two young daughters from a Kansas home where two boys were found dead was arrested on Sunday after a three-state search for the children, state officials said. The two girls were found safe and the father is being held in custody.

Authorities began searching for a 3-year-old and 7-year-old after the young girls were reported missing from a house in Leavenworth, 40 minutes north of Kansas City, Kansas, NBC affiliate KSHB-TV reported. Their disappearance sparked Amber Alerts in Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas.

The Kansas Bureau of Investigation said in a tweet Saturday that the two young girls had been abducted by their father, Donny Jackson, 40, who was also believed to have been involved in a double homicide of two boys found at the Leavenworth home.

The young boys were not immediately identified, but Maj. Jim Sherley, of Leavenworth County Sheriff’s Office, said during a news conference on Saturday he believed the boys were 11 and 14 and were the girls' siblings.

Late Saturday, the Amber Alert was canceled.

According to KBI, Oklahoma Highway Patrol troopers and Beckham county officials pulled over his vehicle and took Jackson into custody after an officer spotted the Honda Accord at the center of the Amber Alert near the Texas-Oklahoma border in Erick, Okla.

The two young girls were recovered and soon returned to their family, KSHB reported.

No other details about when the double homicide or the abduction occurred was immediately available.

Less than an hour before Leavenworth County deputies discovered the double homicide, the Kansas Highway Patrol stopped Donny’s vehicle for an “unrelated car stop” near the Oklahoma border shortly after 12:30 p.m., according to KBI. The two girls were inside the vehicle at the time.

Sherley said that it was a “basic traffic stop.”

"They made contact at the vehicle and that was prior to law enforcement being alert to the incident that had transpired here today,” Sherley said.

He added that the sheriff's office has "had dealings" with Jackson in the past but did not know about the volume of calls to his home.