The four Utah siblings who vanished with their mother after Thanksgiving are finally back in the United States, headed toward something that looks like a normal childhood again. Their dad has them home, the immediate danger is over, and the international scramble to find them is no longer a daily emergency. Yet as the dust settles, one part of the story still refuses to click neatly into place: how a doomsday-obsessed plan stretched from suburban Utah to a Croatian orphanage, and why the systems meant to protect kids struggled to keep up.
What is clear is that the children’s return is the result of a determined father, a cross-border investigation, and a series of arrests that now span multiple states and countries. What remains murky is how a mother convinced that “end times” were coming managed to move four young kids across continents, abandon them in Europe, and keep authorities at bay long enough for the case to turn into an international custody and criminal puzzle.
The disappearance that turned into an international hunt
The story starts in Utah, where four children went missing after a holiday visit with their mother and did not come back when they were supposed to. Relatives reported that the kids, identified as Landon Seymour, 11, Levi Parker Seymour, 8, Hazel Raye Seymour, 7, and 3‑year‑old Jacob Kurt Brady, simply did not reappear after their stay with their mom during Thanks. The case quickly shifted from a messy custody dispute to a missing children investigation when it became clear the mother, Elleshia Anne Seymour, had left town with them instead of returning them to their father.
Authorities in Utah treated the situation as a serious abduction, not a misunderstanding, once it emerged that the children had been taken out of the country. Officials described them as Four Utah children who had disappeared with their mother in November, and by the time the alarm fully sounded, the family was already far from SALT LAKE CITY. According to KUTV, the trail eventually led investigators to Croatia, where the children were no longer with their mother at all but in the custody of the local government.
A ‘doomsday’ belief and a Croatian orphanage
By the time the world learned where the kids were, the story had taken a darker, stranger turn. Their mother, Elleshia Anne Seymour, was being described as a Utah “doomsday mom” who allegedly believed that catastrophic “end times” were imminent. Investigators say she took the children to Europe, then left them in a Croatian orphanage after telling people that the world was about to collapse. Reports from Croatia’s Ministry of Interior describe the children being found in the Croatian city of Dubrovnik, their luggage in tow, with no parent in sight, which is how they ended up in the care of a state facility rather than with family.
Officials say Elleshia Anne Seymour allegedly abandoned the four children in a Croatian orphanage after taking them to Croatia with the children from Utah. Separate reporting framed her as a Utah doomsday mom arrested abroad after allegedly abducting four kids and dumping them in a European orphanage, underscoring how far the case had drifted from a typical custody dispute. One account noted that the situation was so unusual that it was flagged as NEED TO KNOW and KNOW for readers trying to follow how a family drama in Utah ended with kids in a European institution.
The father’s long trip to bring them back
While the headlines focused on the “doomsday” angle, the children’s father was quietly doing the unglamorous work of getting his kids home. Once he learned they had been located in Croatia, he traveled to Croatia himself, hired local lawyers, and started navigating a maze of international legal procedures to regain custody. That effort was not just a matter of showing up with a passport; it required working with Croatian courts, child welfare officials, and American authorities to prove he had the right to bring the children back to the United States.
According to one account, he was supported by a GoFundMe campaign that helped cover the costs of the trip and the legal fight, a reminder that international custody battles are expensive even when the facts seem clear. Reports note that he made the journey in Feb, after officials confirmed the children were safe but still in government custody overseas. Coverage of the reunion described how he ultimately succeeded in bringing the kids back, with one report emphasizing that he traveled to Croatia, hired local lawyers, and worked through international legal procedures to regain custody, as detailed in Feb coverage.
Arrests in two countries and a widening circle
Even as the father focused on the kids, law enforcement was widening its lens. In Croatia, authorities arrested Elleshia after the children were found, treating the case as a serious offense rather than a misunderstanding between parents. Croatian officials confirmed that the children were in the custody of the local government while they sorted out both the criminal allegations and the question of who had the legal right to take the kids home. That meant the children were effectively stuck in limbo, safe but far from their father, while prosecutors and judges in two countries compared notes.
The circle of alleged responsibility did not stop with the mother. In the United States, a woman from Georgia was arrested in Croatia after allegedly helping Elleshia Seymour kidnap the four kids. According to reporting by Katherine Schaffstall, the Georgia woman was accused of assisting the mother based on shared beliefs that “end times” were near, and her arrest was linked to information from the Coffee County Sheriff and the Department. Another account, By Stepheny, described how Elleshia Anne Seymour allegedly abandoned the children in a Croatian orphanage after claiming “end times” were coming, while a separate report, By Latest and Breaking Ne, framed the case as a Utah doomsday mom arrested abroad after allegedly abducting four kids and taking them to a European orphanage, highlighting how the investigation now spans Utah, Europe, and the American South.
The kids are home, but the timeline still has gaps
Now that the children are back with their dad, the public focus is shifting from the frantic search to the unanswered questions. One of the biggest is how long the kids were effectively on their own in Europe before Croatian authorities stepped in. Reports describe them being discovered in Dubrovnik, all of them carrying luggage, which suggests some level of planning but not necessarily a clear plan for their care. Croatia’s Ministry of Interior has released surveillance details showing the children walking with an adult and then later being in the custody of the state, but the exact sequence of when they were left and how quickly they were found is still not fully spelled out in public records, as summarized in a NEED and KNOW briefing about what happens next for the four siblings.
There are also lingering questions about the early days of the case in Utah. Social media posts from Feb, including one labeled Utah Siblings Found Overseas and Mom Arrested, describe how Four Utah children who vanished after Thanks were eventually located abroad, and note that the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office confirmed they were notified once Croatian authorities had the kids. That same post, from japdmedia, suggested the process of bringing them home took longer than family members had anticipated, hinting at bureaucratic delays that have not been fully explained. The local report from SALT LAKE CITY by KUTV confirmed that the children were in government custody in Croatia, but did not fully clarify why it took as long as it did for the father to be allowed to retrieve them.
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