Parents and grandparents of missing 8-month-old Kentucky baby arrested as police search for baby in woods

Kentucky State Police used cadaver dogs to search a wooded area near the home of missing eight-month-old Miya Tucker on Tuesday, but reported no finds by nightfall.

“We have no evidence that she’s dead,” Kentucky State Police Trooper Corey King told NBC affiliate WFIE from nearby Evansville, Indiana. “But we also have no evidence that she’s alive.”

The girl’s parents, Tesla Tucker, 29, and Cage Rudd, 30, her grandparents Billie J. Smith, 49, and Ricky J. Smith, 56, and a fifth person, identified as Timothy L. Roach, were arrested by authorities working on the case.

All are from the Reynolds Station area, except Roach, who is from Owensboro, police said.

It is not clear whether the suspects have retained legal counsel. The public defender for the area did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Some of the five were in court Monday, but it was not clear what happened. Additional court dates in the case were scheduled for Wednesday.

State police announced the arrest of Miya’s parents and Miya’s grandfather on Thursday. All three were arrested on child abandonment and fentanyl charges.

Trooper King told WFIE that the parents were contacted at a Motel 6 in Kentucky, in a room where drugs, including fentanyl pills and methamphetamine, were “plainly visible.”

Miya wasn’t there, he said.

State police announced Sunday that Miya’s grandmother had also been arrested. When they went to her home to search for the girl, it turned out that there was a warrant out for her arrest for domestic violence.

In addition, they said, while at the grandmother’s residence, they saw a man named Roach throw “unprescribed” medications under his vehicle, which led to his arrest for alleged possession of a controlled substance.

It is not clear whether and what relationship Roach has to the family.

King told WFIE that a family member said Miya had not been seen since late April. Otherwise, he lamented that those closest to Miya were the least likely to provide information to authorities searching for her.

He said when the girl was born in October, her umbilical cord tested positive for methamphetamine. King said Miya had three older siblings who were removed from her household by state authorities because they allegedly had drug problems.

The state Cabinet for Health and Family Services also intends to remove Miya from the household, King said.

Her parents told authorities the girl had already been picked up from the closet, but King said that was not true.

The trooper, a spokesman for state police in the Reynolds Station area, about 90 miles southwest of Louisville, said investigators still had hope that Miya could be found alive.

However, he warned: “The longer this goes on, the more dire the outcome will be.”