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CHARLOTTE (MCT) — Two missing Mooresville sisters were found Wednesday when a motorist on Interstate 40 in Tennessee recognized the family's faded green Ford Explorer from an Amber Alert on the interstate.

The woman called the Tennessee Highway Patrol and less than half an hour later the weeklong search for Keara and Sierra Hess was over.

The girls were found about an hour west of Nashville with their adoptive father, 40-year-old Mathew Hess, who was charged with misdemeanor counts of child neglect and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

Authorities were especially concerned because Keara is nearly nine months pregnant and was supposed to have a medical procedure last week.

The girls were taken to a hospital in Tennessee to be checked out. Both are reportedly in good condition, and Keara has not given birth yet, police said.

Hess is accused of driving away with Sierra, 11, and Keara, 12, last Thursday after leaving a note for his wife, Jeanette, saying he was taking them to school.

Jeanette Hess, the girls' biological mother, called authorities when Keara didn't show up for her doctor's appointment.

Questions still surround the case. Authorities said Wednesday they don't know why Hess took the girls or who is the father of Keara's unborn child.

"We don't have any idea why he took them," Iredell Sheriff's Office Lt. Julie Gibson said. "We have a million questions for him."

Mathew Hess was still driving the green 1993 Ford Explorer that authorities have been looking for since he disappeared with the girls.

He was being held in jail in Smith County, Tenn., where he was awaiting extradition to North Carolina.

The charges are a result of not taking Keara to get medical attention, officials said.

Jeanette Hess, who could not be reached for comment Wednesday, previously told the Observer that she and Mathew had been married for almost 11 years.

Gibson said the couple had been separated, and the girls had been living with Mathew Hess in Lincoln County at the time she became pregnant. They moved back in with Jeanette Hess sometime this year.

Keara Hess is reportedly in seventh grade at an Iredell-Statesville middle school. School officials said she was taking a special curriculum designed by her school nurse and a counselor as her due date approached.

Both sisters are in social services custody in Tennessee, and will soon be brought back to North Carolina.

The Iredell County Department of Social Services had already been involved with the family because of Keara's medical issue and will take custody of the sisters, Gibson said.