Four Utah siblings who vanished after a holiday visit with their mother have been found thousands of miles from home, tucked inside a Croatian orphanage instead of their beds in West Jordan. The discovery ends a frantic international search but opens a new chapter of legal and emotional fallout for a family that has already been through months of fear. At the center of it all is their mother, Elleshia Anne Seymour, now under arrest in Europe and accused of turning a custody dispute into a cross-border abduction.
The children’s father, Kendall Seymour, is suddenly juggling lawyers, foreign courts, and his kids’ trauma, all while trying to get them back on a plane to Utah. Their story is dramatic, but it is not unique, and it exposes just how messy parental abduction becomes once a parent crosses an ocean with a child who was supposed to come home.
From Thanksgiving visit to international manhunt
The four siblings were reported missing in Utah after what was supposed to be a routine stay with their mother over Thanks, a visit that should have ended with a handoff back to their father. Instead, authorities say Elleshia Anne Seymour simply did not return them, triggering a missing advisory and a slow realization that this was not a simple miscommunication. By the time investigators pieced together what had happened, the children were no longer in West Jordan or even in the United States, they were on the other side of the Atlantic.
Investigators and family members later learned that Elleshia Anne Seymour had allegedly flown the children out of Utah in November 2025, turning a local custody dispute into an international case. Officials described them as Four West Jordan children who had effectively disappeared with their mother, and the search widened from SALT LAKE CITY to Europe as relatives pleaded for help and the Utah Department of Public Safety circulated alerts for the Four Utah siblings who had vanished with her. The case quickly shifted from a domestic custody issue to a suspected kidnapping that would require foreign police and consular officials to get involved.
The discovery in Croatia and the mother’s arrest
The break came when authorities in Croatia located the children in an orphanage, far from the tourist bustle of places like Dubrovnik that most Americans picture when they think of the country. Local officials had taken the siblings into care after they were found without their legal guardian, a move that likely kept them safe while Utah authorities worked to confirm their identities. Once the match was made, word filtered back to SALT LAKE CITY that the missing children from West Jordan were alive, together, and in government custody in Croatia.
At roughly the same time, police in Europe arrested their mother, who Utah prosecutors had already charged with four counts of third-degree felony custodial interference in mid-December. Reports describe how Local officers in Croatia coordinated with American counterparts after learning that Elleshia Seymour was wanted in Utah, and how family members in SALT LAKE CITY spoke publicly about her being taken into custody overseas. One account notes that NEED TO KNOW details included that three of the four children were U.S. citizens, a fact that will matter as American and Croatian authorities sort out who has the final say over where the siblings live next.
Inside the legal maze: custody, charges, and international law
For Kendall, the children’s father, the relief of knowing his kids are alive is immediately tangled up with a legal maze that stretches from Utah courtrooms to Croatian ministries. After Elleshia Seymour fled the United States with the children, he began working with lawyers to figure out how to enforce his custody rights across borders, a process that is slow even when everyone is cooperating. He has spoken about the steps he is being advised to take, from securing orders in Utah to presenting them to Croatian authorities, and how every move is shaped by the fact that the children are physically in a foreign orphanage rather than in his home.
Legal experts say that when a parent abducts a child abroad, the situation is instantly more complicated because international treaties and local laws come into play. Guidance from cross-border family law specialists notes that if a child is taken out of their country of habitual residence, the left-behind parent often has to use mechanisms like the Hague Convention to ask the foreign state to return the child to the place of habitual residence. That process can involve multiple hearings, translation of court documents, and arguments over which country’s courts should decide long term custody, all while the children wait in temporary placements.
In Utah, prosecutors have already laid out their side of the story by charging Elleshia Seymour with custodial interference, signaling that they view her actions as criminal rather than a misunderstanding. Coverage of the case explains that in mid-December, Utah authorities filed four third-degree felony counts tied to each child, and that Local officials in West Jordan and SALT LAKE CITY coordinated with the Utah Department of Public Safety as the search widened. Another report notes that Rob Taub described how a missing advisory for the children was issued and how European police later moved in once they had enough information to arrest the mother in Croatia.
The father’s fight to bring the kids home
While lawyers and officials trade documents, Kendall is focused on something much simpler, getting his kids out of the Croatian orphanage and back into a familiar routine in Utah. He has talked about the emotional whiplash of going from not knowing if they were alive to suddenly learning they were in a European institution, and then being told that he could not just book a flight and pick them up. Instead, he is being walked through a checklist of what needs to happen next, from securing the right court orders to arranging travel documents for each child.
Accounts of his situation describe how Family members in SALT LAKE CITY have rallied around him, speaking publicly about the children’s ordeal and about Elleshia’s reported “doomsday” claims on social media that worried them even before she left the country. One detailed rundown of the next steps explains that After Elleshia Seymour fled the United States with her four kids, Kendall Seymour was advised to work closely with attorneys who understand both Utah custody law and Croatian procedures so he can present a clear case for why the children should be returned to him. Another report on what happens next for the Utah siblings notes that Elleshia Anne Seymour, Kendall’s ex-wife and the children’s mother, has already been arrested, but that her criminal case and the children’s placement will move on separate, if overlapping, tracks in the months ahead.
What this case reveals about parental abduction
Strip away the international headlines and this story starts in a place that is painfully familiar, a fractured relationship, a custody order, and a holiday visit that should have been routine. What sets it apart is the decision, alleged by Utah authorities, that Elleshia Anne Seymour made to take Four West Jordan children out of the country instead of returning them, forcing everyone involved into a crash course on international law. The fact that the siblings ended up in a Croatian orphanage rather than hidden in some remote cabin underscores how quickly foreign authorities can step in when children are found without clear legal guardianship.
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