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Amber Alert helps authorities find abducted children
Photo Courtesy of McKinney PD - McKinney police issued an Amber Alert on Saturday that helped authorities find 10-year-old Kaitlyn Guresh and 14-year-old Camren Guresh, who had been abducted by their father Craig Guresh late Friday.
By Chris Beattie, cbeattie@starlocalnews.com
A combined effort of local, state and national law enforcement agencies this weekend helped recover two children abducted by their non-custodial father.
McKinney police cancelled a nationwide Amber Alert on Sunday evening when FBI investigators found 14-year-old Camren Guresh and his 10-year-old sister Kaitlyn safe in Memphis, Tennessee.
The FBI, who had joined the search as soon as the alert was issued Saturday evening, found the kids with their father, 44-year-old Craig Allen Guresh, who did not have legal custody of them and was arrested in a similar incident earlier this year.
Guresh had abducted the children in September and taken them for four months until they were recovered in Missoula, Montana, where Guresh reportedly carried a handgun. An Amber Alert was not issued in that case, but the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children did issue an alert.
In that incident, once authorities found Guresh and the children, they arrested Guresh and charged him with bigamy and interfering with child custody. He was booked into the Collin County Detention Center on Jan. 23, but bailed out of jail about a week later. He and Bisconti were scheduled to appear in court for those charges this week.
Because of the past incident, Bisconti's statements and the way in which her children went missing Friday, police believed the children were again with Guresh and this time in immediate danger, an assumption necessary for an Amber Alert issuance.
"Not knowing [the kidnapper's] intentions always causes alarm," Ellenburg said Monday after the children were found. "He deliberately did this in the cover of darkness."
When Bisconti told police, they filed an Amber Alert application, providing reasons for its necessity, and submitted it to the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS). The Amber Alert was issued around 7 p.m. Saturday night, Ellenburg said.
A requesting law enforcement agency -- in this case, the MPD -- must meet certain criteria through DPS to activate the state Amber Alert network. The children's disappearance must be unwilling or forced and must pose immediate threat to their safety or well-being, and preliminary investigation must have verified an abduction and eliminated any other explanation.
The DPS confirmed McKinney police met this criteria, thus the ensuing billboards and highway messages that alerted the public. Detectives worked with the FBI and local law enforcement in other cities to track Guresh and the children, whom they found in Memphis.
Memphis police and FBI agents arrested Guresh at about 8:30 p.m. Sunday, said Anna Clark, McKinney city spokesperson. He has been charged with Felony 3 kidnapping.
Bisconti was reunited with her children Monday in Memphis, where Guresh is jailed while authorities complete the investigation and finish filing charges, Ellenburg said.
Though being abducted twice may be a rarity, the Guresh children were the latest victims of a fairly common problem. A child goes missing in the U.S. every 40 seconds, and more than 700,000 children go missing each year, according to a U.S. Department of Justice and National Center for Missing and Exploited Children report.
The first three hours are most crucial for the child's safe return, and it often takes authorities at least two hours to gather needed information from a panicked parent, according to the report.
This weekend's search lasted only about 24 hours, largely because of the Amber Alert, which has proved successful since its 2002 inception. Texas DPS spokesperson Tom Vinger said the state Amber Alert network has now been activated 78 times, during which 85 children have been recovered safely.
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