Boys, 13, Make It 669 Miles in Mom's Swiped BMW

Two 13-year-old Ohio boys who stole a mother's car and drove it 669 miles to Kansas City, Mo., were found sleeping in a downtown alley, police said. The runaways from the Columbus area apparently gave their location away when one posted on Facebook that they were stuck in Kansas City without any gas, adds the Columbus Dispatch; seems mother Catherine Johnson had by that point cut off a credit card son Cole had swiped along with the keys. The boys were taken into custody yesterday by officers investigating a suspicious vehicle that matched the description of Johnson's BMW. "They were fine, fortunately," said a police spokesman. "I think there are definitely a whole lot of things that could have gone wrong for them, and having the police find them probably would be one of the better outcomes."

Johnson said Cole had wanted to go to California to skateboard. "How it went on for two days and no one noticed boggles my mind," Johnson said yesterday by phone from Chicago as she waited for a flight to Kansas City to retrieve the boys. Johnson said authorities told her the boys would not be charged, and the car was towed. She has submitted a complaint over how Columbus police initially handled the case because she believes they took hours too long to alert other authorities. (More runaway stories.)