Authorities trying to find father of boy left at Kohl’s

Nearly a month after a 5-year-old boy was abandoned at a west Wichita Kohl’s department store by his grandmother and temporarily placed in foster care, authorities are still trying to track down his father.

Sedgwick County Assistant District Attorney Tricia Knoll told District Judge Jeff Syrios on Friday that her office has taken strides to find the man believed to be the boy’s biological father and notify him of hearings taking place concerning his son’s welfare. Efforts to reach the man at his last known address in Pueblo, Colo., have been unsuccessful to date, Knoll said in court.

Knoll also said it appeared paternity records requested and received via subpoena from a Colorado court were missing pages and could not be used to deem the man the boy’s natural father for the purposes of Friday’s hearing. She said the District Attorney’s Office would attempt to obtain a complete set of paternity papers in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, notices of the next child-in-need-of-care hearing regarding the boy will be published in Sedgwick County and the Pueblo, Colo., area in an effort to reach him, Knoll said.

An attorney appointed by the court to represent the father’s interest in the case also said he had not had contact with the man.

A second court-appointed attorney, Anita Kemp, told the judge she had exchanged phone calls with the boy’s mother, asking her to e-mail her objections to the state’s court filing seeking to deem her son a child in need of care if she could not attend Friday’s hearing.

But as of Friday morning that message had not been received, Kemp said.

The mother, who lives in Amarillo, Texas, did not appear in court Friday. Neither did aunts of the boy or his maternal grandfather, who attorneys say were notified of the proceeding. The boy’s maternal grandmother is dead.

During a hearing in June to determine whether the boy should be placed temporarily in foster care, attorneys told a judge he had lived with his paternal grandmother since 2011. The boy knows his father only by name and hasn’t seen his mother in four years, except in photographs, attorneys said at the time. A judge has said the boy cannot have contact with his parents until a therapist recommends it.

The boy was placed in foster care last month, three days after he was left at the Kohl’s store in the 6900 block of West Kellogg on June 16. Police have said his paternal grandmother, 41-year-old Kathleen A. Williams, bolted from the store without her grandson after she was caught trying to steal about $200 worth of women’s clothing. She did not come back for him.

Authorities are still looking for Williams, Wichita police Lt. James Espinoza and Sedgwick County sheriff’s Lt. Lin Dehning confirmed Friday.

She’s wanted in connection with the theft attempt, on suspicion of child abandonment and on a warrant for violating her probation in prior theft cases. Court records show she also has a history of drug use.

The boy’s mother, 25-year-old Tiffani Picciurro, in an interview with The Eagle in June, claimed she allowed Williams to take her son from Colorado to Kansas during a move in 2011 but that Williams didn’t return him. She said she knew where and with whom her son was living but never tried to retrieve him because she wanted to avoid family conflict.

Picciurro in an interview with The Eagle last week said her two other children, ages 4 and 2, also aren’t living in her home.

Attorneys associated with her 5-year-old’s child-in-need-of-care case in Wichita have said in court that the younger children are in state custody in Texas.

Picciurro claims she and her fiance voluntarily sent their son and daughter to live with a family member in April after someone contacted the child protective services agency in her area about their welfare.

This story was originally published July 11, 2015 at 2:22 PM with the headline "Authorities trying to find father of boy left at Kohl’s."