NOEL TARA BURGENER - 11 yo (2008) - Wasilla AK

St Louis MO ---- An Alaska woman suspected of kidnapping her daughter two
years ago was arrested in Missouri during a routine traffic stop after
police noticed she and her young passenger appeared far too nervous for
only missing a license plate, authorities said Tuesday.

Mary Joe Burgener, 44, of Wasilla was being
held in Lincoln County while she awaits extradition, Troy Police Chief
Jeff Taylor said. Her 13-year-old daughter, Noel Tara Burgener, has been
reunited with her father in Alaska.

Burgener is accused of custodial
interference and unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. No court date has
been set, but she was expected back in Alaska by mid-July and will be
arraigned when she returns, said Trina Sears, an assistant district
attorney for the region that includes Wasilla.

It was unclear if she'll face charges
in Missouri. Lincoln County's prosecutor did not return calls Tuesday,
though no charges were listed in the state's online court records.
Officials in both states did not know if Burgener had an attorney,
and Alaska's online court records system did not list one.

Burgener picked up her daughter from
her ex-husband on June 28, 2008. Her father believed Noel was being
taken to a camp, but when he arrived to pick up her up a few days later,
camp workers told him they had no record she attended, according to FBI
records.Authorities later found that Burgener
purchased two airline tickets to Seattle with a June 29, 2008, departure
date.

A search had been ongoing ever since.
Authorities suspected she was in Montana or Tennessee, and the case was
listed on several missing child websites. But it remained unclear
Tuesday where Burgener and her daughter have been over the past two
years.

"We're still investigating that," Sears
said.

The traffic stop that netted her arrest
came after police Sgt. Brian Walker in Troy, about 60 miles north of
St. Louis, noticed a car with only one Oklahoma license plate. He pulled
the driver over June 19 for not having a front plate.

The driver said she was Mary J. Pepper,
and identified her passenger as her 16-year-old niece. But Walker
became suspicious -- the woman's story was inconsistent, and the girl
was hesitant to talk.

"He said he could just tell right off
the bat that something wasn't right," Taylor said. "He said when he
looked the mom in the eye, she looked straight ahead."

Walker's suspicions were confirmed when
the dispatcher told him that the name Mary J. Pepper matched an alias
used in an Alaska child abduction case. The driver matched the
description of the suspect, and Burgener was taken into custody.

An FBI agent escorted Burgener's
daughter to Lambert Airport in St. Louis within days of the traffic stop
and she was flown back to Alaska, the agency said.

The girl has since been reunited with
her family and is staying with her father, Sears said.

"Our office has had a chance to talk to
him and things are going well," Sears said.