Parents on the run since daughter, 10, died in house fire caught on Appalachian Trail months later
The parents of a 10-year-old girl who have allegedly been evading arrest warrants for two months since she died in a house fire were found on the Appalachian Trail.
Carina and William McCue were arrested by members of the Gwinnett Sheriff’s Office’s fugitive unit in northern Georgia on Thursday, said senior deputy Ashley Castiblanco.
The couple face charges in connection with an April 17 fire that killed their daughter, Zoe McCue. Zoe’s remains were discovered in a bathroom without windows, along with a makeshift bed in the bathtub, cops said.
All of the couple’s children were living in ‘unsanitary and dangerous conditions’, authorities said.
Hours after the fire on Easter Sunday, authorities found Zoe’s 15-year-old brother at a church in Rockdale County. The boy confessed to intentionally setting the home on fire and was arrested on murder and other charges, according to The Atlanta Constitution-Journal.
Zoe’s parents have been missing since early May when arrest warrants were issued for them. They apparently fled after losing custody of their four other children.
The McCues were last seen at a motel in Lawrenceville. Fugitive investigators tracked the couple in Cleveland, Georgia, and caught them on the hiking trail near Helen, according to Castiblanco.
The three other McCue children are under state protective custody.
Records showed that the McCue family was subject to investigations two times prior to the house fire, but no charges were filed against the parents.
A neighbor, Mike Kilgore, in May said that he was alarmed by how the McCues were behaving.
‘It was kind of like some kind of cult,’ he told 11Alive. ‘I’m not surprised at all they’re on the run. I hope the kids get the teaching they need, and I hope their mommy and daddy get what they deserve.’
The parents are being held in prison without bail.
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