Missing children, father found unharmed

Cell phone conversation with police Monday night leads to highway stop

Montgomery County police negotiators spoke with Navid Eghterafi Nanaf Abadi, 43, on his cell phone late Monday night while he was driving on Route 66 in Virginia in his silver 1998 Honda CRV, police said.

Shortly after that, Eghterafi was stopped by police at Interstates 270 and 370 in Gaithersburg, where he was taken into custody without incident and brought to an area hospital for evaluation, police said.

The children — daughter Juliette Eghterafi, 10, and son Anis Eghterafi, 8 — were in the car and were returned to their mother, with whom they live in Germantown, police said.

‘‘It’s been very traumatic,” the children’s mother, Saghar Khalilian, said Tuesday morning.

Eghterafi did not confirm to police that he had intended to hurt himself or the children, and no weapons were found in the car, police said.

Eghterafi, of the 18800 block of Bent Willow Circle in the Gunners Lake area, has joint custody of the children and had permission to be with them when the three disappeared. Police said he was depressed because he lost a legal attempt to increase his visitation rights on Friday.

He is currently undergoing an emergency psychiatric evaluation, said county police spokeswoman Officer Melanie Hadley. After the evaluation, police will determine whether to pursue charges, she said.

The search for Eghterafi and the children began Monday when he called a relative at about 5:15 a.m. and threatened to kill himself and his children.

He was believed to be going to Ocean City, although police are unsure whether he ever went there, Hadley said.

Eghterafi did not return calls for comment.

The three were spotted in the Deep Creek Lake area of Garrett County on Sunday, though they were last seen by family members in Olney on Saturday, police said.