Parents taken into custody in child-abduction case after I-70 traffic stop

The girls had been taken from their grandparents in Tennessee

February 22, 2012

HANCOCK — Two people were taken into custody Wednesday evening in a Tennessee child-abduction case when Hancock police stopped a van they had been looking for on Interstate 70, according to a 911 emergency spokesman.

Two children had been abducted from their grandparents in Tennessee, and the FBI was involved in the search for them, the spokesman said.

Authorities were looking for a van involved in the abduction, and police believed it might have been around the Pennsylvania and Maryland border, the spokesman said.

A van was stopped on I-70 near Hancock at about 5:42 p.m., and the two children — a 3-year-old girl and a 4-year-old girl — were taken into custody by local child-protective services workers, the spokesman said.

The girls appeared to be fine, according to Officer R. Miller of the Hancock Police Department.

The parents of the children, Jeremy Knasel, 32, and Ashley Norberg, 24, both of Spencer, Tenn., were taken into custody on fugitive warrants from Tennessee and transported to the Washington County Detention Center, Miller said Wednesday night.

Police received an Amber Alert about the children at about 5:22 p.m. The eastbound Chevrolet Astro van was initially spotted near the Woodmont Road exit on Interstate 68, Miller said.

The van was stopped at the three-mile marker on I-70 just outside of Hancock, Miller said.

The alert said the children were taken from Knasel and Norberg because they were manufacturing methamphetamine in a house while the children were present, Miller said.

Hancock police were aided by Maryland State Police, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office and the Hagerstown Police Department, according to a news release.

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