State Police told Russell Yates Monday that after more than three decades they had a lead on the whereabouts of his wife and children. Yates was hopeful, although police didn’t offer all that much information.

Then Tuesday, upon returning from work to his Warwick home, he was besieged by the news media. He had heard from friends, who had picked it up on the news, so he knew his wife had been located.

“There was all kinds of media in my driveway. I didn’t know what to say. I had less information than them [the media],” he said.

In a telephone interview Tuesday, Yates said, “I’m just ecstatic.” As for the details, Yates said police told him they had informed his two daughters of his contact information, but he doesn’t know where they are located. He believes they now have families of their own.

“I don’t know what she [the wife] told them,” he said. He speculates they may have thought he was dead all these years.

“I have no animosity against her,” he said of his wife, “that’s not going to change anything now.”

His fear is pushing the kids “further away” and he doesn’t want to do anything like that. Yates’ personal search for the children went on for years and years. He said every so often police would contact him just to touch base. With development of the Internet, Yates searched online in vain. He said a week didn’t go by when he didn’t think of them and wonder what they were doing.

In those first months after their disappearance, Yates said, “I had a little army of people helping.”

Peter Manders remembers the hours stuffing envelopes with fliers that were sent to school and agencies across the country. Manders was one of about five friends of Yates who did what they could to find his children. To Manders’ knowledge, nothing came of all the inquiries. It was like Yates’ wife and his two children disappeared into thin air.

Then, in a surprise announcement Tuesday, State Police disclosed in a press conference they received information about the possible whereabouts of Elaine Yates and her daughters, and with the assistance of the Texas Department of Public Safety discovered her residing in the Houston area, using the name Leina L. Waldberg.

They reported she was taken into custody on Jan. 16 without incident, was arrested and charged with child snatching. She was slated to be arraigned Wednesday in Kent County Superior Court. State Police Lt. Col. Joseph F. Philbin said at the press conference that the women were living in the Houston area but not with their mother. He declined to provide their names.

In late August 1985, Yates filed a missing persons complaint claiming his wife, Elaine C. (Pigeon) Yates, and two children had left Warwick and not been seen since. According to the Providence Journal archive, several weeks before Elaine Yates disappeared with Kelly, 3, and Kimberly, 10 months, her husband had struck her after she discovered him with another woman.

A felony warrant for child snatching was issued for Elaine Yates on November 16, 1988. In September 1990, Mary Pigeon, Elaine Yates’ mother, was found in contempt of court and briefly imprisoned in the ACI for refusing to disclose the whereabouts of her daughter, according to the Providence Journal archive. Pigeon died in 2000.

Manders, who still stays in contact with Yates, learned of the news from Channel 12. He went to Yates’ Facebook page expecting to learn more, but nothing was posted by Tuesday afternoon.

“It was heartbreaking,” Manders said of Yates and the loss he felt.

In their effort to find the children, countless letters and fliers were sent to schools and law enforcement agencies across the country.

Manders is not one to call Yates an angel.

“He was a good father, but he wasn’t a good husband,” he said. As for his wife, he said, “She bailed with a lot of money, enough to bury herself.”

Manders’ hope is that the children will want to see and meet with their father.

(With reports by Mary Johnson)