Internet Babies Adopted Mother Arrested for Theft

L O N D O N, Feb. 22 -- There's no end to the troubles dogging the Welsh 'mother' at the center of a bitter trans-Atlantic Internet adoption row.

First, there were damning reports in the British media that Judith and Alan Kilshaw Buckley in North Wales hired a "ghostbuster" to flush out their farmhouse after the couple was allegedly "troubled" by ghosts.

Now, Mrs. Kilshaw has been picked up by London police for allegedly stealing $36,000 worth of traveler's checks.

According to a report in a British newspaper, Mrs. Kilshaw ordered the travelers' checks before going to the U.S. where the couple paid a $12,000 fee to a baby broker for twin infant girls.

It is believed Mrs. Kilshaw had been handed the checks by a travel agent who thought she had prepaid.

The paper quotes Mrs. Kilshaw as saying, "I took them and I used them. I didn't think it was stealing since they were given to me."

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"We can confirm that a 47-year-old woman from Buckley was arrested yesterday on suspicion of theft and questioned at Mold police station," a police spokesman told Reuters. "She has now been released on police bail. No charges have been brought against her."

The Kilshaws have been locked in a custody battle for the twins with California couple Richard and Vickie Allen, who were originally matched with the children by the Internet broker.

Further Complications

The Kilshaws brought the twins to Britain in January but the girls are currently in the care of local authorities while the courts decide what to do in a complicated case that has sparked off a debate on both sides of the Atlantic.

The tug-of-war for the twins, known in Britain as Belinda and Kimberley, reached a peak when the birth mother, Tranda Wecker, a former receptionist from St. Louis, Mo., joined the custody battle claiming she wanted the children back.

Wecker's lawyers told reporters the birth mother blamed her ex-husband, Aaron Wecker and their troubled relationship for her decision to put her children up for adoption.