Kids In Last Month's Amber Alert Now In Foster Care
McKINNEY (CBSDFW.COM) - Three weeks ago the search began for two McKinney children who disappeared from their mother's home, leading authorities to issue an Amber Alert.
The kids were found within three days, and their father was arrested for kidnapping. But the mother voluntarily turned the two over to foster care just three hours after returning home.
Their bedrooms still wait for the return of Camren and Kaitlyn Kuresh. The siblings last slept in their home three weeks ago when they crawled out of a window and joined their father on an out-of-state trip that led to his arrest for kidnapping.
Michele Bisconti says her 14-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter have been programmed by her bitter ex-husband to hate their mother. "It's called parental alienation, and not a lot of people know about it."
She says it started when she and Craig Guresh divorced in 2008. Bisconti says her Guresh blamed her for the breakup, and turned the children against her. While in his custody, Guresh was captured on phone messages turning his children against their mother.
Allegations of abuse were leveled against Bisconti, but she was cleared after an investigation by Child Protective Services.
During interviews with counselors one of the children was asked if he would make his mother a picture.
He replied, "not if you were the last person on earth."
Bisconti has notebook after notebook filled with journals documenting every encounter with her children over the last four years. She's keeping them so they will someday no her feelings about them that she can't share now.
Experts say as many as 250,000 parents are experiencing the same kind of alienation. "It's clearly not an effective way to raise children, and it's probably very harmful to them emotionally in the long run," says Susan Hoff with the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas.
Bisconti hopes to be reunited with her children after intensive counseling and therapy. But for now, she can only stare at their empty bedrooms and wonder why they aren't there. "I feel like i've aged 20 years in the past four," says Bisconti.
Guresh remains in the Collin County Jail. His attorney tells CBS 11 that his client still maintains the children were abused.
He also denies he turned the children against her.
