One of two arrested US missionaries released in Haiti

Charisa Coulter, 24, was handed over to US embassy personnel who drove her away from the police station where she had been detained. She made no comment to waiting media.

Her companion and employer, Laura Silsby, 40, remained in detention.

Silsby and Coulter were arrested with eight fellow Baptists on January 29 as they tried to take 33 Haitian children into the neighboring Dominican Republic by bus without the necessary documentation.

The group denied wrongdoing, saying it was only trying to help orphans in the wake of Haiti’s devastating January 12 earthquake that killed more than 220,000 people.

Many of the children, though, were found to have living relatives in Haiti.

The other eight Baptists were released mid-February and permitted to return to the United States, but Haitian authorities kept Silsby, who was the leader of the group, and Coulter, who was her live-in nanny.