Missing Boys' Adoptive Parents Lived In North Texas

DALLAS (AP) - The adoptive brother of two missing boys tells Colorado investigators that one of them was denied food and rolled up tightly in blankets as punishment in the home of their adoptive parents. An arrest warrant affidavit says Austin Bryant got so hungry that he scavenged from the garbage.

Investigators said Thursday that Austin and his biological brother, Edward, had both disappeared by late 2003. Authorities say Austin may have disappeared in 2003, when he was 7, and Edward may have disappeared in 2001, when he was 9.

The couple who adopted them, Edward and Linda Bryant, have been arrested on charges of receiving nearly $175,000 in government payments to support the boys, even though they weren't living with them for most of the decade.

Investigators say the boys lived with the Bryants in Colorado before the couple moved near Gainsville in 2005... but they haven't been seen since. They have since been extradited to Colorado where they are being held on a $1 Million dollar bond, charged with theft and forgery. They haven't been charged in the boys' disappearances.

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