Idaho officials are looking for two missing teenagers connected to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Allen Larand Fischer, 13, and Rachelle Leray Fischer, 15, were reported missing Sunday from Monteview, Idaho.
The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office said the teens are believed to have left Monteview and possibly returned to Trenton, Utah, where they previously lived. Officials said they most likely went missing between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. Sunday,
Idaho State Police released an Amber Alert for the teens. Allen is described as 5-feet-9 and 135 pounds, with longer sandy blond hair and blue eyes. He was last seen wearing a blue shirt and blue jeans. Rachelle is 5-feet-5 and 135 pounds, with brown hair and blue eyes, last seen in a green prairie dress.
“It is believed that the children willingly left to return to Trenton, Utah, due to religious beliefs,” the sheriff’s office initially said.
On Tuesday, the sheriff's office said it wasn't sure if they had left the state.
“At this time, we are unsure if they have left the immediate area or are still close by,” officials said.
The sheriff’s office noted that their older sister, Elantra Dee Fischer, 18, was reported missing Jan. 1, 2023, and “has not been located at this time.”
Anyone with information on their whereabouts is asked to call the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office at 208-745-9210.
FLDS is a polygamist sect that splintered from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and its adherents live in small towns on the Utah-Arizona border.
FLDS is led by fundamentalist Mormon leader Warren Jeffs, who was arrested in 2006 and has been serving a life sentence in Texas since 2011 for sexually assaulting girls he took as child brides. He’s seen by many as the faith’s current prophet.
Allen and Rachelle's mother, Elizabeth Roundy, said she returned from her family Bible class Sunday night and discovered the teens missing.
“My children asked if they could go down to the shop to get on the internet … so they could watch videos while I went to the class,” Roundy told EastIdahoNews.com. “I allowed them to do it, and that wasn’t very smart of me. I let them go down there, and when I came back to get them, they were gone. Somebody came by the shop and hauled off with them.”
Roundy was part of the FLDS church but was exiled in 2020. She moved to Idaho and after a lengthy custody battle for her three children with her ex-husband. She was awarded full custody in 2021. Her ex, Nephi Fischer, has fought to get them back, according to the outlet.
Efforts to contact Roundy and Fischer were unsuccessful Thursday.
Roundy believes that the kids’ older siblings and other members of FLDS abducted Allen and Rachelle.
“I believe they could have been watching, and it’s my guess that they were lingering around in the neighborhood somewhere waiting for a chance to grab the children,” Roundy told the outlet. “I’ve seen their vehicles driving past my place, up and down the roads, even past the shop the kids got picked up at just barely on Friday.”
“I’m very concerned about their well-being, and of course, I’m missing them very badly. I’m heartbroken they’re gone,” she added.
The Uvalde Foundation for Kids, a national student advocacy and violence prevention group founded after the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in May 2022, launched a multistate effort to find Allen and Rachelle and is offering a $5,000 reward for their safe return.
The group's search efforts will include canvassing neighborhoods where the teens were last seen and believed to be headed, distributing flyers and gathering tip information.
“There is a unique, particularly elusive form of psychological violence which we believe has been the force behind these two youth missing. We believe they have been abducted by this highly dangerous, religious group and we will go to every means possible to locate & bring them home safely,” said Daniel Chapin, the foundation's founder.
