Amber Alert leads to arrests


Thursday, March 29, 2012
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Amber Alert leads to arrests

By SUE WATSON
Staff Writer


Taylor Nicole Maskill	Johnny Douglas Johnson

A call from a motorist, who saw an Amber Alert while driving through Birmingham, Ala., Friday, helped locate a kidnapped 8-month-old baby boy.

Sheriff Kenny Dickerson said Marshall County dispatch received a call March 23 about 9:35 a.m. from a woman stating she noticed information on a billboard while driving through Birmingham and had tag information and a vehicle description. The woman said she thought she saw the vehicle westbound on Highway 78.

“Officers were dispatched to mile marker 36 when they spotted the vehicle near the West Holly Springs Exit,” Dickerson said. “Deputies stopped the vehicle at mile marker 21 near the Red Banks exit.”

The baby, Matthew Douglas Maskill, was recovered and transported back to his legal guardian while the child’s mother and a passenger in the vehicle were taken into custody.

Taylor Nicole Maskill, 19, of the 200 block of Railroad Street, Milan, Texas, and Johnny Douglas Johnson, 46, of the 27500 block of Saddle Road Lane, New Caney, Texas, were transported to the Marshall County Jail, he said. They awaited extradition Monday back to Georgia where the child had been taken from the baby’s grandmother, who has custody.

Photo by Sue Watson

Kelly McMillen (left) and Kenny Dickerson display the automobile stopped in Marshall County after last Friday’s Amber Alert.

Dickerson said the child, who had been adopted by his grandmother shortly after the baby’s birth, was abducted from the grandmother’s home in Dodge County, Ga.

Shortly after retrieving the baby, sheriff’s investigator Tammy Thompson and an employee with the Department of Human Services transported the child to meet with family and authorities in Birmingham, Ala., the sheriff said.

There were no charges filed against Taylor Nicole Maskill or Johnny Douglas Johnson in Marshall County.

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