A 50-year-old Tennessee man, who authorities said kidnapped a 15-year-old girl this month, was spotted shopping at an Oklahoma City Wal-Mart on March 15. 
 
 The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation confirmed on Friday the sighting of Tad Cummins and Elizabeth Thomas. The bureau said it obtained surveillance video from the Wal-Mart at 100 E Interstate 240 Service Road after receiving a tip. 
 
 Investigators said the video shows Cummins and Thomas shopping in the store on March 15. Cummins used cash to buy food, and he had altered his appearance by darkening his hair, according to a news release. 
 
 Investigators said they were working to determine the vehicle the man and teen were traveling in. 
 
 Officer Travis Vernier said the TBI has not asked for Oklahoma City police assistance. 
 
 “They're really conducting the investigation,” Vernier said, adding authorities don't know if Cummins and Thomas were just passing through Oklahoma City. 
 
 Thomas was last seen on March 13, the day authorities said Cummins kidnapped her. Cummins is a former teacher at the school she attended in Culleoka, Tenn., which is about 60 miles south of Nashville 
 
 He was suspended from the school after an investigation was launched into allegations he had inappropriate contact with Thomas. A Feb. 8 memo from Maury County Public Schools states that a student at the Culleoka Unit School reported seeing Cummins and Thomas kiss on Jan. 23. 
 
 “Neither Mr. Cummins nor Beth Thomas confessed to the incident. Neither party admitted to behaving inappropriately towards the other. The allegation of teacher Tad Cummins kissing student Beth Thomas could not be confirmed from the evidence presented,” school district officials reported in the memo. 
 
 Thomas had been a student in Cummins' forensics class, officials said. The teacher was suspended without pay from the school district on Feb. 6 and fired the day after Thomas went missing. 
 
 Cummins is described as about 6 feet tall, weighing about 200 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. He is thought to be armed with two handguns and driving a silver Nissan Rogue with Tennessee license plate 976-ZPT. 
 
 Thomas is described as about 5 feet tall, weighing about 120 pounds, and was last seen wearing a flannel shirt and black leggings. 
 
 A warrant has been issued for Cummins on complaints of aggravated kidnapping and sexual contact with a minor. He was added to the TBI's most wanted list on Friday and a $1,000 reward for information leading to his arrest is offered. 
 
 Also on Friday, the teacher's wife of 31 years filed for divorce. Court records show that Jill Cummins sued her missing husband on the grounds of irreconcilable differences and inappropriate marital conduct. The wife, who works for the Maury County school system, says she has not seen her husband since March 13. The couple have two children together. 
 
 Jill Cummins has previously publicly pleaded with her husband to turn himself in and bring the girl home safely. 
 
 Anyone with information should call 911 or the TBI at 1-800-TBI-FIND. 
 
 Contributing: Associated Press 
 
 Related to this story Show more 0 ||||| Police are searching this morning for a former teacher accused of convincing a teenage student to run away with him. Investigators in Tennessee believe Tad Cummins kidnapped 15-year-old Elizabeth Thomas. 
 
 Cummins was fired from his teaching job last week over alleged inappropriate behavior with the teen. He faces charges of sexual contact with a minor and aggravated kidnapping. 
 
 On the day Thomas disappeared, both wrote cryptic messages on Instagram. She posted a quote about “Beauty and the Beast.” Cummins wrote: “Let’s do this.” 
 
 CBS News 
 
 Thomas was last seen at a restaurant in Columbia, Tenn., exactly a week ago, wearing black leggings and a flannel shirt. Investigators tell correspondent Omar Villafranca they have no idea where Thomas and her suspected kidnapper are now. Part of the reason? Both of their cellphones have been turned off. 
 
 James Thomas has a message for the man suspected of taking his younger sister: “Even if he doesn’t go with her, if he could leave her somewhere safe and let the police know where she is, so we can have her, if he can just drop her in a public place and say, ‘Hey, here she is.’” 
 
 A friend dropped Thomas off at Shoney’s Restaurant in Columbia the morning of March 13. About eight hours later, information obtained by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation placed the teenager about 70 miles away, in Decatur, Ala. 
 
 Surveillance video appears to show Cummins putting gas in his silver Nissan before allegedly meeting up with Thomas on the morning she disappeared. 
 
 “We honestly have no idea where these two individuals are right now,” said Josh Devine, of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. 
 
 Authorities released new surveillance photos of Cummins on Monday, CBS affiliate WTVF-TV reports. 
 
 Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, WTVF-TV 
 
 Despite amber alerts in Tennessee and Alabama, Devine says his agency isn’t getting the influx of tips they need. 
 
 “Either they’re off the grid so they’re outside the view of the general public, or they’re outside our original concentration area here in the Southeast,” he said. 
 
 Fifty-year-old Cummins worked at the Central Tennessee High School where Thomas is a freshman. In a letter to the Maury County School District, Thomas family attorney Jason Whatley claimed another student saw Cummins kissing Thomas in January. 
 
 The school district says they suspended Cummins when they were notified of the allegations. But Whatley says the school waited more than a week to take action. 
 
 “Any suggestion that he was suspended immediately when these allegations came out is just false,” he told Villafranca. 
 
 Over the weekend, Cummins’ wife begged him to come home. “This is not who you are,” Jill Cummins said. “We can help you get through this. 
 
 “My heart breaks for the family of Beth Thomas,” she added. 
 
 When asked what it might take for a break in the case, Devine said, “It takes one person who might be driving down a road and sees that Tennessee license plate, and they call 911, that breaks this thing wide open.” 
 
 “It’s been a week out; are you still optimistic?” Villafranca asked. 
 
 “You have to be optimistic. The mission of our agency is to find him, make sure he’s in custody, and bring her home.” 
 
 The Tennessee Bureau of Investigations says Cummins, who has no criminal record in Tennessee, is armed with two handguns. 
 
 Investigators also tell CBS News that Cummins appears to have been planning this for some time by watching survivalist shows. ||||| The 50-year-old Tennessee teacher arrested for running away with his 15-year-old student prepared for the trip by picking up two refills of his erectile dysfunction medication. 
 
 Tad Cummins expressed relief to officials who collared him Thursday in Cecilville, Calif. — 2,400 miles from his home in Culleoka, Tenn., CNN reported 
 
 "I'm glad it's over," he reportedly told the SWAT team that arrested him. 
 
 Cummins and former student Elizabeth Thomas had been on the run since March 13, and authorities scoured for clues as to where they were headed. 
 
 Tenn. teacher accused of abducting student arrested in California 
 
 A federal complaint filed against the former teacher at Culleoka Unit School revealed Cummins refilled his Cialis prescription and made reservations at Super 8 Motels in Oklahoma City and Guymon for the weekend of March 16. He arranged for the rooms, each of them with a lone bed, under his own name before going on the run. 
 
 Authorities said the actions hinted that he planned to leave with the 15-year-old girl. It’s still unclear if she willingly ran away with her ex-teacher. 
 
 Tad Cummins was arrested Thursday after a nearly two-month search. (HANDOUT/REUTERS) 
 
 The same day he vanished with Thomas, Cummins told his wife he needed to borrow her Nissan Rogue to go to a job interview at the Williamson County Medical Center. He had been suspended from his teaching job for his interactions with a student and additionally took out a $4,500 loan to meet his "financial needs during his suspension from work without pay." 
 
 He took the loan money as well as a pair of handguns, clothes and toiletry items before he began his weeks-long run with his former student. While they were dodging cops, Cummins also managed to visit a Walmart where he purchased women's razors, chocolates, and a "commonly used lubricant for sexual intercourse," according to the complaint. 
 
 Family pleads for missing teacher who kidnapped girl to return 
 
 Elizabeth is now “en route” to Tennessee where she’ll be reunited with her parents, the family’s attorney told local NBC affiliate WSMV. 
 
 State and federal law officials began moving her back after she underwent medical reviews, he added. 
 
 “We have mental health people that are engaged actively in this case that are going to be working with her for her best interest,” said the attorney Jason Whatley. “We're following their recommendations completely.” 
 
 Elizabeth Thomas was found with Cummins at a remote cabin. (Tennessee Bureau of Investigation) 
 
 Cops finally got word of their whereabouts after a Cecilville groundskeeper notified them that the pair had been staying at an unfinished cabin since earlier this week. 
 
 A sheriff’s official at the scene told “Good Morning America” that Elizabeth’s state of mind varied at the scene. 
 
 “She was laughing, she was crying,” he said. “She was kind of an emotional roller coaster as you can imagine.” 
 
 Cummins is due in court Friday, and faces state and federal charges. 
 
 Elizabeth's father, Anthony Thomas, told “Good Morning America” he believes his daughter was brainwashed. 
 
 Siskiyou County Sheriff Jon Lopey announced Cummins had been arrested without incident. (JIM URQUHART/REUTERS) 
 
 Thomas added his daughter would need therapy, and her family planned to be patient with her. 
 
 Tennessee Bureau of Investigations spokesman Josh DeVine told NBC News’ “Today” Friday morning that Elizabeth appears to be in a healthy physical state. 
 
 The state, he added, will speak with her about what exactly drove the two to disappear. 
 
 “We’re going to be talking with her,” he said. “We want to know exactly what the set of events looked like.”
– A 50-year-old teacher was caught on security cameras at a Walmart in Oklahoma two days after he allegedly kidnapped a 15-year-old girl in Tennessee, the Oklahoman reports. Tad Cummins and Elizabeth Thomas are seen in the video—taken March 15 but not confirmed or released until Friday—using cash to buy food at the Walmart. According to the Tennessean, the video represents the first images of Cummins and Thomas since the alleged kidnapping on March 13. Cummins appears to have darkened his hair, and Thomas now appears to have red hair, WIAT reports. The video was made public after the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation received a tip Thursday. Cummins was fired from his teaching job following alleged inappropriate contact with Thomas, a student at his school, earlier this year. The two reportedly exchanged potentially romantic emails, though Thomas' family says she once hid from Cummins. There was a possible sighting of Cummins' car in Texas, and there have also been reports Cummins and Thomas are now in Mexico. Investigators have received more than 1,200 tips regarding Cummins and Thomas so far.