Amber Alert Girl Now a Murder Suspect

May 7, 2008— -- A Florida grand jury will decide whether a 15-year-old girl whose disappearance triggered an Amber Alert should be tried as an adult in the murder of a man she and her boyfriend allegedly beat and suffocated.

Authorities in Florida issued arrest warrants on first-degree murder charges against the teenager, Amanda Morgan Leppert, and Toby Lee Lowry, 22. Authorities say the couple fled the state April 25 in a stolen pickup truck belonging to murder victim James Thomas Stewart, 66.

Both remain in custody in El Paso, Texas, where police found them Saturday, 1,600 miles from home, panhandling by an interstate highway after a motorist recognized Leppert from a nationally publicized Amber Alert.

Stewart was found dead inside his Melrose, Fla., home May 1. His Toyota Tacoma was missing from his driveway. An autopsy found that he had been beaten, stabbed and suffocated before he died, authorities said.

"Mr. Stewart had been viciously beaten with two metal rods and had been stabbed multiple times with a knife," Putnam County Sheriff Dean Kelly said at a press conference Tuesday. "The autopsy also revealed that Mr. Stewart had been suffocated with a plastic garbage bag that had been put over his head."

Leppert was originally reported missing April 22. Her mother told police that she feared her daughter may be with Lowry, a Florida man with a lengthy criminal history in Putnam and Clay counties.

Lowry was released from a 20-month prison sentence last summer. Kelly said Leppert and Lowry may have become romantically involved sometime last fall. It was unclear how they'd met, but Kelly said it could have been over MySpace.

After Stewart's family reported to police that the 66-year-old, who's hard of hearing, had not contacted them in days, police entered the house and discovered the murder scene.

Leppert had left behind her phone at Lowry's house when she disappeared, Kelly said at yesterday's press conference, and authorities saw that a call had been made from Stewart's home to Leppert's phone April 25. With the pickup truck missing and Stewart dead, authorities had reason to believe that Lowry -- and perhaps Leppert -- were involved in his death. A warrant was issued for Lowry's arrest on charges of auto theft and interfering with child custody.