Mother to return from Tennessee

A woman who allegedly helped her 12-year-old daughter and an 8-year-old girl flee from their foster home earlier this week will be extradited to California, authorities said.

Iris Pineda Zavala, 38, of Monrovia was arrested Wednesday by police in Chattanooga, Tenn., as she and her daughter, Estephanie Flores, left a Greyhound bus for a connection to Miami, Fla., to meet relatives, said Steve Whitmore, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Sheriff’s investigators had learned the pair were on the bus and notified Chattanooga police, Whitmore said. They believe the pair boarded the bus in Joplin, Mo., on Wednesday after last being seen in Miami, Okla. It was unclear how they reached Joplin, Whitmore said.

Zavala’s arrest came a day after authorities found 8-year-old Robin Lemus abandoned in her foster parents’ stolen Lexus in a McDonald’s parking lot in Miami, Okla. Robin, still wearing her pajamas, was sitting inside the car in 95-degree heat but was unharmed, officials said.

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office charged Zavala late Tuesday with one count each of child stealing, child detention with right to custody, child abuse and stealing the foster family’s 1998 Lexus, Whitmore said. Bail was recommended at $500,000.

Estephanie and Robin have been placed in protective custody. Sheriff’s Department investigators were en route to Oklahoma to pick up Robin and soon may also bring back Estephanie, Whitmore said.

“Both girls are safe, secure and doing OK,” he said.

--

-- Molly Hennessy-Fiske