Kootenai plans to drop Amber alert kidnap case

COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho – Kidnapping charges will be dropped against a transient accused of taking two children in an Amber Alert incidence last month, prosecutors said.

John Marc Jack Thompson, 56, was arrested Aug. 2, three days after police issued an Amber Alert for two children believed to be with him.

But Chief Deputy Prosecutor Lansing Haynes said his office is drafting a motion to dismiss the second-degree kidnapping charge by next week. He said the completed police investigation showed there was not enough evidence to support the charge.

Police issued the Amber Alert for 4-year-old Tatiana Seibert and her 5-year-old cousin Ford Ware after Seibert’s mother told authorities they had become separated while caravanning across Idaho with a group of people.

The children had been riding in Thompson’s car with the permission of their parents when the group drove through Coeur d’Alene and Yvonne Seibert, 26, became separated from the others in the four-vehicle caravan.

But apparently Ware’s parents were never far away. When police arrested Thompson, the children were not with him. He directed authorities to a campground, where they found Ware’s parents Jennifer Anderson and Les Ward, along with the missing children.

Tatiana Seibert, Ford Ware and Ware’s three siblings were all taken into protective custody because Bonner County officials believed they were at risk with their parents.

Child Protection Act cases are sealed by the court and it is not clear if the children have been returned to their parents.

Though the local charges are expected to be dismissed, police said Thompson is wanted on unrelated charges in Colorado and will likely be extradited there once the kidnapping charges are formally dropped.