GILROY
– Gilroy remains in the national spotlight today as the
coast-to-coast search for two abducted New Hampshire children now
believed to be dead continues.
GILROY – Gilroy remains in the national spotlight today as the coast-to-coast search for two abducted New Hampshire children now believed to be dead continues.
A nationwide manhunt for a New Hampshire man accused of killing his two children ended Thursday night at Gilroy’s Roadway Inn, 611 Leavesley Road, where Gilroy police arrested 44-year-old Manuel Gehring for felony child concealment.
Concord, N.H., police and the FBI had been searching for Gehring since he abducted his two children, 14-year-old Sarah and 11-year-old Philip. They were last seen in Concord on the Fourth of July.
Gehring told his ex-wife shortly before they disappeared that he would not abide by a new custody arrangement, his ex-wife said in court records. Police now believe that Gehring murdered the children and dumped the bodies somewhere in the Ohio area, according to Gilroy police.
On Thursday GPD and FBI detectives monitored Gehring for more than an hour before arresting him outside room 109 of the Roadway Inn.
“They asked for the keys to the room next to his and waited for a while,” said Raj Prasad, the Roadway Inn manager, who said Gehring checked into the hotel alone Thursday night and paid for the single-bed room with a credit card. “They were trying to listen to see if he had children with him. After a while they came to the front desk and called his room. When he left to come to the front, they arrested him.”
Prasad said Gehring did not resist arrest.
Gehring is not known to have any connections to Gilroy, according to GPD spokesperson Capt. Debbie Moore.
According to Moore, the GPD made the arrest and quickly turned Gehring over to the FBI, who had followed Gehring’s credi card paper trail to Gilroy.
Moore said a local police agency will often handle an arrest in a federal case because local police have logistics advantages such as radio contact. Gehring was a fugitive who crossed several state borders, which made him a federal suspect, Moore said.
Authorities say Gehring, an out-of-work accountant, drove across the country starting July 4 or 5, possibly with his children.
FBI agents and officials searched for the children Sunday without success and again Monday.
New Hampshire Attorney General Peter Heed declined to release further details about the search Monday, but in a brief interview, he said he held out little hope that Sarah and Philip would be found alive.
“Until we find bodies, you never say never. But, based on everything we know, our level of confidence that they are dead is very high,” he said.
Prosecutors have said Gehring is the sole focus of the investigation.
Gehring is being held in the mental health unit of the Santa Clara County Main Jail in San Jose without bail. A jail spokesman said Gehring is depressed but was not considered a suicide risk.
Gehring is scheduled to appear in court in San Jose’s Hall of Justice Tuesday afternoon, but no charges have been filed in the case. Deadline for the charges to be filed is noon Tuesday. He was charged in New Hampshire last week with interference with child custody.
Gehring, a naturalized citizen from Nicaragua, was out of work after finishing a year-and-a-half contract job with a Nashua firm last month, according to a petition for emergency custody of the children filed by his ex-wife, Teresa Knight, on July 7.
Gehring and Knight signed a mediated agreement on June 24 – the day they were supposed to go to trial over custody – that said Sarah and Philip would go to school in Concord, where their father lived, but would spend two or three days and nights each week with their mother in Hillsboro.
After signing the agreement, Gehring “called (Knight) and advised her that he had no intention of following the agreement,” according to her July 7 petition in Merrimack County Superior Court in Concord. Gehring “was very agitated and angry in his last telephone call with (Knight).”
A woman who considered Gehring her closest friend and spoke to him every day said he was thrilled when Knight signed the agreement allowing Philip to go to school in Concord and spend about 60 percent of his time at his father’s.
The focus of the search for the children is the Midwest, according to Assistant New Hampshire Attorney General Jeff Strelzin.
FBI Special Agent Robert Hawk in Cleveland said information that he would not disclose prompted a seven-hour search Sunday in the Toledo-area. FBI agents and police searched on foot and in a helicopter in open areas and parks along major highways and thoroughfares but did not file the children.
Officials said unspecified evidence found Friday night and early Saturday led them to believe the children are dead. Strelzin would not discuss the evidence or say whether Gehring was helping them find the children.
Teresa Knight, who is four months pregnant with twins, has not spoken to reporters, but her husband, James Knight, the children’s stepfather, told the Monitor they were struggling to cope with the news.
He said they last saw the children on July 2 when they dropped Philip off at his father’s home.
“There were no problems as we saw them,” he said.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
