Elizabeth Thomas Says No Regrets About Running Away With Tad Cummins

Elizabeth Thomas, the then 15-year-old girl who was at the center of a nationwide manhunt after she was allegedly abducted by her 50-year-old high school teacher in March, opened up to a reporter of the Columbia Daily Herald about the incident and said she does not regret it, reports said Tuesday.

Thomas, now 16, vanished from her home in Colombia in south of Nashville, Tennessee, in March and reportedly spent five weeks on the run with her high school teacher, Tad Cummins, before being discovered in a remote cabin in California.

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The teenager had avoided talking about her alleged abduction, for which Cummins, 51, faces federal count charges of taking a minor across state lines for sex as well as state kidnapping and sexual contact with a minor.

A news reporter for the local Columbia Daily Herald spotted her with two children she was baby-sitting at a fast-food restaurant Saturday, and asked her opinion about the incident.

"I don’t regret it, nor do I say that it was the right thing to do," Thomas said.

"It was an experience I’ll have to live with the rest of my life. It’s good and bad. It’s there. No matter what we do, we’ll have to deal with it," she added.

Thomas told the Daily Herald she returned to Columbia in July following three months of therapy, and said she was "happy to be back and that people are so accepting."

Thomas also explained how she felt about the international attention her case garnered, specifically focusing on the details of her life and the crime she was a part of.

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"I am a human being. I can answer things fairly. But people are asking things that are too personal. People are talking to me like they know me. They didn't talk to me before. They didn't try to know me before. They have only liked me since I came back," Thomas said.

Thomas went missing March 13, after which Tennessee law enforcement authorities issued an Amber Alert for the teen.

Cummins was fired from his job at Culleoka Unit School after questions were raised about him being involved in her abduction. School documents from Jan. 23 claimed that a student saw Cummins and Thomas kissing. The incident was later reported to the authorities.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation listed Cummins under the state’s "Top 10 Most Wanted" for the alleged abduction of his student.

Amid the ongoing drama over Cummins' disappearance along with the teenager, his wife, Jill, filed for divorce in March citing "irreconcilable differences" and alleged he was "guilty of inappropriate marital conduct."

On March 30, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation released a video footage, which shows the pair at a Wal-Mart store in Oklahoma City on March 15.

"The surveillance images of Cummins and Thomas – the first obtained by investigators since the alleged kidnapping on March 13th – clearly show Tad Cummins with an altered appearance to darken his hair. The same images show Elizabeth may currently have red hair. Efforts to determine what vehicle they were traveling in remain ongoing," authorities said in a release.

Cummins and Thomas were found in April in a remote cabin in Siskiyou County in the northernmost part of California near the Oregon border.