Officials Found Man Accused Of Taking Grandchildren

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MURFREESBORO, Tenn. - Investigators have caught up with a former Murfreesboro man suspected of kidnapping his two grandchildren and raising them as his own.

Rutherford County detectives are flying to San Jose, California, Tuesday evening to arrest and bring Marvin Maple back to Tennessee.

Neighbors in the Palmer Heights subdivision in Murfreesboro remember the night Maple and his wife escaped with 8- and 7-year-old, Christie and Bobby Baskin

Almost 20 years to the date, the siblings are living in California as Jennifer and Jonathan Bunting, but investigators know they're actually the Baskin children, taken in March of 1989.

"We believe that they were home schooled to keep them from registering for schools, giving them social security numbers, dates of birth, who their mother and father are - any type of information," said Lieutenant Bill Sharp, Rutherford County Sheriff's Office Cold Case Unit

The Maples, reportedly desperate to win custody of the grandchildren, even made allegations of sex abuse on the children's biological parents.

"These charges were false. No abuse had occurred. As I said, the father was in seminary. He's now a minister in Georgia," said Dan Goodwin, spokesperson for the Rutherford County Sheriff's Office.

The kidnapped children's biological father, Mark Baskin, described the outcome as an "out of body experience." He says he looks forward to reuniting with his children.

"Well, we've got to establish a relationship with them first," said Baskin.

Detectives have spoken with Christie Baskin. They say she is understandably reluctant to believe the story. She and her brother are college graduates, both in their late 20s.

Officials hope to have Maple back in Murfreesboro by end of the week. They said he will be tried in Rutherford County, and his grandchildren could be called to testify.

Maple had changed his name to John Bunting, according to investigators. He told authorities his wife, Sandra or Frances Bunting, died a couple years ago.