When 15-year-old Elizabeth Thomas reported her mother to authorities for alleged child abuse in 2016, she thought her nightmare was over. Her homeschooling ended, her father took sole custody of her and she enrolled as a freshman at the public high school in her small community of Culleoka, Tenn., about an hour drive south of Nashville.
But the worst was still to come.
Less than one year later, Elizabeth would be wooed romantically and kidnapped by her health science teacher, Tad Cummins, who was 50 at the time. It would be 38 days between her disappearance and her rescue thousands of miles away, in a remote cabin in the woods of Northern California.
How Did Elizabeth Thomas Meet Her Abductor?
Elizabeth and her siblings reported their mother, Kimberly Ann Thomas, to Child Protective Services for a series of alleged abuses in 2016. Their claims included accusations that Kimberly Ann threw Elizabeth down a flight of stairs and locked her in the basement.
Kimberly Ann denied the allegations and would eventually reach a plea deal that expunged the charges, but at the time, the accusations prompted the removal of Elizabeth from the homeschooling environment. The ninth grader enrolled at Culleoka Unit School, the K-12 public school in her rural community.
Elizabeth was bullied by her classmates. Socially alienated, she began confiding in one of her teachers, Cummins, who became close with Elizabeth, inviting her to attend church with him and his then-wife, Jill.
Were There Warning Signs Before the Abduction?
When Elizabeth told Cummins she wished to seek therapy or antidepressants, he discouraged her from both courses of action, saying they would change her.
Cummins’ behavior with the girl at school was called into question nearly two months before the pair disappeared when a 12-year-old told a school resource officer on January 23, 2017, that he saw the teacher give Elizabeth a “romantic peck.”
Following that report, Cummins and Elizabeth were interviewed by detectives and school officials. Investigators took Elizabeth’s phone and discovered that she had placed calls to Cummins outside of school hours.
Both denied improper behavior, with Cummins claiming the relationship was paternal and not romantic. The school system ordered Elizabeth and Cummins to cease contact.
Elizabeth was subsequently seen in Cummins’ classroom on February 3, 2017, and the school briefly suspended him.
Elizabeth would later tell investigators that, after his suspension, the educator coerced her to maintain contact with him via social media, threatening to end his life and hers if she attempted to create distance between them. And when other students learned about Cummins’ suspension and his relationship with Elizabeth, the bullying of her intensified.
How Was Elizabeth Thomas Abducted?
The week before Elizabeth’s kidnapping, Cummins took several steps to prepare. He took a cash $4,500 title loan and filled a prescription for the erectile dysfunction drug Cialis. On the day of the abduction, he borrowed his wife’s 2015 Nissan Rogue under the pretense of needing it for a job interview.
That job interview didn’t exist, and when Cummins left home that morning, he took with him the prescription, the $4,500, two guns, clothing and toiletries. He left behind a note for his wife saying he planned to travel to either Virginia Beach or Washington, D.C., to “clear [his] mind.”
Elizabeth had agreed to leave town with Cummins. She had a friend drop her off at a restaurant in the nearby community of Columbia between 7:30 a.m. and 7:45 a.m. on March 13, 2017, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations.
Cummins then took Elizabeth on a multi-state getaway. The pair headed to Alabama, where they threw their cell phones into the Tennessee River. Cummins dismantled the car’s GPS system and replaced its license plate with one that he took from an abandoned vehicle. They drove through Mississippi, Oklahoma, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and finally, to California. Amid her disappearance, Elizabeth updated her Instagram bio to include the word “wife,” and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation discovered Cummins had researched teenage marriage online.
How Was Elizabeth Thomas Found?
In San Diego, Cummins purchased a two-person kayak for $1,500 in hopes of paddling to Mexico along the Pacific Ocean coast and evading law enforcement. Cummins was worried they would be caught if they traveled overland to Mexico and there was a nationwide Amber alert about Elizabeth’s disappearance.
But after buying the kayak, he determined that it would be too dangerous to attempt the water voyage and instead resold the boat and drove north.
After reaching remote Siskiyou County, about 60 miles south of the California-Oregon state line, they sought help from a 29-year-old man at a gas station, who gave them a few days of work and temporary accommodations at a cabin in a heavily wooded area. That man became suspicious of them. With help from a friend, he identified them as the pair from a nationwide hunt and called in the tip, which led to Cummins’ arrest.
After authorities positively identified the vehicle by its VIN and briefly surveilled the pair, Cummins was arrested. He offered no resistance.
Cummins avoided a trial by pleading guilty to charges of transportation of a minor across state lines with intent to engage in criminal sexual activities and obstruction of justice. In 2019, he was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.
At his sentencing hearing, Elizabeth cried and said Cummins robbed her of her childhood.
“Tad Cummins is a sick, disgusting criminal,” she said while delivering her victim’s impact statement. “I believe Mr. Cummins’ sentence should be 38 years in prison—one year for each day he kept me away from my family.”
