Ricky and Dena

For their coup-de-grace crime, Davis and Riley sexually assaulted the child while driving backroads along the Kansas-Missouri border.

They then planned to end their lives. Each swallowed a handful of pills, chased by several doses of methamphetamine.

Oddly, they then decided the child deserved mercy.

It was widely reported in the media that Davis and Riley had surrendered. That was not the case.

Davis' Romeo-and-Juliet plan was to drop the girl off outside her home in Arcadia, then race away along country roads to a remote spot, where they would drift off to sleep while embracing and die of overdoses.

But a snag developed when they got lost and couldn't find their way back to Arcadia to drop the girl.

At 4:40 p.m., about five hours after the child was abducted, Davis used his cell phone to call 911 in Barton County, Kan. In the drug-addled conversation, he tried to ask an operator to help him determine his location, explaining that he wanted to drop a child off at a friend's house but was lost on a dirt road.

The operator passed the phone to Deputy Vincent Ashworth, who spent more than 20 minutes on the phone with Davis and Riley.

Riley explained that they were in the process of committing suicide by drug overdose but wanted to spare the child's life.

"Why are you trying to kill yourself?" Ashworth asked.

Riley replied, "We've done a lot of bad things, and we don't want to be caught by anybody. We're gonna end this before anybody else gets to us."

Riley repeatedly hollered at Davis, who was nodding off.

"She kept yelling at him, 'You need to wake up! You need to stay on the road!" Ashworth told "America's Most Wanted."

Riley finally managed to read the name on a road sign, which placed them somewhere along an eight-mile-long dirt road.

Law enforcers raced in that direction just as Deputy Ashworth heard a metallic thud through the phone. Davis had fallen asleep and run the truck into a ditch.

Barton County Sheriff Shannon Higgins arrived to find Riley behind the wheel and Davis outside trying to push the truck. The little girl was sitting in the truck of a farmer who happened to pass by and offered to help.

Richard Davis

The couple, so high they could barely stand up, were not in a position to put up a fight. Riley's face was smeared with blood from a broken nose and split lip she suffered in the wreck. Davis was not hurt.