Montana kidnapping suspect said he was going to Texas


January 19, 2012 at 2:48p.m.

Montana kidnapping suspect said he was going to Texas

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (AP) — One of the suspects in the alleged kidnapping of a Montana teacher now presumed dead received court permission to leave Colorado just two days before the woman disappeared.

The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reports 22-year-old Michael Keith Spell, of Parachute, got approval from a Garfield County judge on Jan. 5 to go to Texas, saying his brother had been in a car accident there.

Forty-three-year-old Sherry Arnold disappeared two days later in Sidney, Mont.

Spell is awaiting arraignment in Garfield County on charges he tried to persuade a middle school student to text fellow students and ask them if they wanted to buy marijuana.

He was arrested Jan. 13 in Rapid City, S.D., and is being held on aggravated kidnapping charges in Williston, N.D., with 47-year-old Lester Vann Waters.