Amber Alert Over After McKinney Kids Found Safe
Updated: 5/20 9:48 p.m.
MCKINNEY (CBSDFW.COM) - The two children who were abducted by their father from his ex-wife's home triggering an Amber Alert have been found and are safe, city of McKinney spokeswoman Anna Clark said.
Craig Allen Guresh, 44, was arrested in Memphis, Tenn. by FBI agents and Memphis police at about 8:30 p.m. Sunday, Clark said. Police said Kaitlyn and Camren, ages 10 and 14 respectively, willingly crawled out of a window and left with their father Friday night. They've been missing since, and authorities issued an Amber Alert.
Clark said the children are "okay" and Guresh has been arrested.
The 44-year-old was arrested in January and bonded out for doing the same thing, jail records show.
Guresh was arrested and booked into the Collin County Detention Facility on Jan. 23 on charges of interfering with child custody and bigamy. His ex-wife says he took their two children last September and fled to Montana where they were recovered.
That incident was never elevated to an Amber Alert, but the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children did issue an alert for them in September.
Guresh and his ex-wife, Michele Bisconti, had been undergoing divorce proceedings since 2008. They'd been married for 14 years but Guresh became possessive and controlling so Bisconti filed for divorce, she said. The process was finalized in September –– but the day a judge was set to rule on custody, Guresh had the children call in to school sick and hit the road. He missed the hearing completely.
Before reaching their destination, Guresh took the kids to Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. They rented a cabin in Montana and lived under assumed names, Bisconti said. The children never attended school, nor did neighbors report seeing them outside the home during daylight hours. Something was amiss, one noticed, and called police.
Days before that phone call, divorce records show that a judge ordered forensic analysis of a family laptop. Guresh, who had primary custody of the children then, may have left clues on the computer as to their whereabouts, investigators believed.
But when the neighbor called police, authorities found Guresh and his two children. They also discovered Guresh had another wife in Collin County.
Guresh was charged with bigamy and interfering with child custody.
After Guresh was arrested, court records show he hired a lawyer who argued to a Collin County judge that his client's bond was too high. The judge did not reduce it, but Guresh posted bail and was released on Feb. 1, just more than week after he went in, records show.
On Saturday, more than three months after his release, Guresh is believed to have taken Camren Guresh, 14, and Kaitlyn Guresh, 10, and fled –– again. McKinney Police incorrectly identified Camren as Carmen when the Amber Alert was issued.
Bisconti said she tucked her children into bed on Friday, and then they vanished. She said Camren's window was open and Kaitlyn's cell phone lay between the dresser and the window. Kaitlyn's 10th birthday party was planned for Saturday.
"When I noticed the window, my heart just dropped at that point," Bisconti said. "I knew what happened. I knew they'd gone with their father."
Camren's phone has also received calls from a blocked number that Bisconti believe came from Guresh.
After the September incident, a judge placed a protective order on Guresh, preventing him from seeing his children or his ex-wife.
This time, Bisconti said she believes the children are in danger. After the first incident, Bisconti says Camren testified during a court hearing that Guresh told him he would shoot himself if caught because he couldn't stand to be jailed alongside minorities. He used a derogatory term we've elected not to publish.
In Montana, Bisconti said Guresh carried a handgun and kept it on a table in the cabin.
"I'm in shock, why is this happening again?," Bisconti said. "These kids are missing again, by the same man."
Guresh is jailed in Memphis; police haven't said what he'll be charged with.
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