Kids Taken While Mom Is Away On Military Mission

(WCCO) "The United States government is working with a Minnesota couple who are worried they may never see their grandkids again after Italian police took them away and accused their mom of abandoning them.

Bob and Marcia Benson, from White Bear Lake, Minn. said their daughter, Kris Wylie, is a staff sergeant in the Air Force.

Wylie and her two little girls moved to Italy three years ago when she started work at a military base in Aviano, Italy.

While away on a recent Air Force mission in Bulgaria, Wylie said she left her children with her fiancée. However, officers came into the house that she shares with her Italian fiancée, and took the girls.

"Grandma and grandpa are in a really bad spot here with two little kids they love dearly," said Bob Benson, Wylie's Father.

Wylie told her parents she's been charged with abandoning her daughters: Lilly, 5, and Lora, 7.

The two girls remain in custody of Italian police.

"Are they in good hands? Are they being taken care of? Are they going to be shipped off somewhere else and we'll never see them again?" said Bob.

The girls and their mother are all United States citizens.

Senator Norm Coleman's office is investigating the case, as is the State Department. Officials at the Aviano Air Force base said they're also trying to defend this native Minnesotan.

"It's bad enough having them in Italy where we can't see them very often, but then to have this happen, where you're totally helpless in the situation," said Bob.

Now the Minnesota grandparents, and their daughter, are worried that they'll never see Lora and Lilly again.

"You have to understand that the most important things in life are not things. It's who you have," said Bob, while crying.

Kris Wylie will soon go to court to try and prove she did not abandon her children."