KyLea Fortner and Shaeleen Fitch-Fortner, two teenage sisters who were simply heading to school were kidnapped while waiting for the school bus on April 27, 2015, this is according to the New York State Police. Both sisters were living with a foster family before their disappearance.

Finally, months later after they went missing, both sisters were found at a home in Vestal, New York. The kidnapper was apparently an acquaintance of the sisters, the kidnapper has been charged for the disappearance of both girls.

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Ky-lea Fortner, 16, and Shaeleen Fitch-Fortner, 14, were held against their will at the home of Amanda Hellman, 29 until they were located by police on Wednesday, Credit: WQAD

Amanda Hellman, 29, was arrested for second-degree kidnapping, according to the release. She was sent to the county jail without bail.

Hellman pleaded not guilty, according to the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin. The felony complaint claims she held the two girls against their will.

“Eleven months goes by …  and you think the worst,” Broome County District Attorney Steve Cornwell told the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin on Thursday. He also mentioned that the State Police never rested on this case they kept looking and looking non-stop, they never gave up.

The Press & Sun-Bulletin reports

A felony complaint filed in Vestal Town Court said Hellmann abducted the girls from the area of the Susquehanna Valley High/Middle School on Conklin Road in Conklin.

For presumably much of the next 11 months, authorities say, it’s alleged Hellmann kept the sisters at her house, at 327 Torrance Ave., and prevented them from returning to the foster home where they had been living.

“Hellmann … conducted numerous acts to prevent law enforcement from returning the two children to their foster parents,” the complaint states.

To reach the girl’s whereabouts, the State Police had to review numerous of investigative leads in order to find the girls, the state police news release read, before also noting that “information was developed” that suggested the girls, who are now ages 16 and 14, were in the home.

Both sister were turned over safe and sound to family service officials, according to the state police news release.

Source: Washington Post