HARRISON COUNTY, Texas (KLTV) – It was a tense overnight search to catch an East Texas woman who authorities say kidnapped children with a view to possibly selling them.

Authorities say two of the children were their own.

That search ended when Harrison County law enforcement officers arrested Lindsey Mariah Kelley, 23, after a nearly six hour search for her and three children.

Investigators say Kelley came to visit a house on Appaloosa Lane near Hallsville. Then she promptly disappeared and took the three children with her.

“The children are currently living with their grandparents. I guess they tried to do like everyone else and have a family day. She took the children while everyone was somehow distracted; they were in the back yard and the kids had gone to bed. When they found she was gone, they called the authorities immediately, ”said Brandon Fletcher, Harrison County Sheriff.

Around 10:30 p.m., Kelley’s father called the police about the kidnapping of a four-year-old child from that house.

The father told the sheriff that Kelley had a drug problem and that there was something else.

“In the past she had made the hint, a statement, that she would ‘offer the children’. The father understood that he was selling them some kind of deal, ”said Fletcher.

All neighboring authorities were informed of the child abduction and the sheriff was about to issue an Amber Alert when he received important information.

“In the end we visited eight different locations. It was the phone ping information we took on her phone. We were able to find them. Every minute that goes by, the chance of finding them decreases, ”said the sheriff.

Kelley was taken into custody and the children recovered unharmed. Longview Police Department assisted Harrison County in the incident.

“The children were all safe and sound, but there were some narcotics and some needles in the room with the children. We’re getting stronger and stronger in numbers and I was glad it went that way, ”said Fletcher.

The children were found in a house in Longview, about eleven miles from their disappearance. They were taken back to the house from which they were abducted.

Lindsey Kelley remains on charges of kidnapping in Harrison County.

Officials tell us that a man is currently under investigation in connection with the child endangerment case.

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