The McKinney Police Department issued an Amber Alert Friday morning for two sisters, ages 6 and 9, who are suspected of having been kidnapped by their paternal grandmother.
The girls in question are six-year-old Jennifer Burns and nine-year-old sister Jessica Burns.
The two were last seen just before 6 p.m. Thursday at a restaurant near Central Expressway and Virginia Parkway, where they were having a supervised visit with their father, Justin Burns.
Child Protective Services (CPS) was present at the visit and currently has temporary custody of the girls, according to a post by police.
Jennifer Burns is described as white, 4 feet tall, and about 60 pounds with blonde hair and blue eyes. She was last seen wearing purple-frame glasses, a light blue shirt with a sparkle design on the front, and blue jeans.
Her sister, Jessica Burns, is described as white, 4 feet and 10 inches tall, and 90 pounds with blonde hair and blue eyes. She was last seen wearing dark-frame glasses, a long-sleeved red shirt with black shoulders, and blue jeans.
The McKinney Police Department suspects they were abducted by their grandmother, 60-year-old Jame Burns. The girls’ father, Justin Burns, has since been arrested and charged with two counts of kidnapping, as police believe he was involved in their disappearance.
Jame Burns was previously arrested in 2017 for abandoning or endangering a child with criminal negligence and has an earlier burglary conviction, according to court records, per The Dallas Morning News.
Police said Jame Burns was last seen driving a black SUV with a front-end scratch, a black interior, and silver door handles.
The McKinney Police Department is currently working with the FBI in the search for the two sisters.
The Dallas Express contacted the FBI field office in Dallas for additional information and to confirm that the two agencies are working together.
“We are assisting McKinney PD in the investigation to locate Jennifer and Jessica,” said an FBI spokeswoman.
Anyone with information is asked to call 9-1-1.
Of the 29,859 missing children cases reported to The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in 2020, 4.8% were family abductions. In 2020, 63% of all AMBER alerts issued were for family abduction cases.
For its part, the City of Dallas clocked 150 kidnappings in 2022 and another eight since the beginning of the new year, a period of just a few weeks that has seen a sharp acceleration in violent crime, which the city council seems unable to get a handle on.