Amber Alert for Missing Idaho Teens — and Mom Fears They're Heading to Fundamentalist Sect She Left Years Ago

Idaho authorities are looking for two teens who are linked to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Allen Larand Fischer, 13, and Rachelle Leray Fischer, 15, were reported missing by their mother on Sunday, June 22 at 8:48 p.m. after she returned to their Monteview, Idaho home from a bible class.

The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office believes the teens may have returned to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints community in Trenton, Utah, where they lived before.

“Their mother was previously an FLDS member,” Jennifer Fullmer, a public information officer with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, tells PEOPLE. “She was exiled and had to leave the children there. And then when she finally got custody of them, she brought them back to her hometown of Monteview.”

“We believe that [her children] wanted to go back to the FLDS lifestyle,” she says.

Authorities don’t believe the children just walked off.

“There’s no buses,” says Fullmer. “There’s no trains. It’s out in the middle of the desert. Mom’s belief is that somebody from the FLDS picked up the children.”

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a polygamist sect run by Warren Jeffs, the self-proclaimed prophet and convicted pedophile. In 2011, Jeffs was convicted on two counts of child sexual abuse and sentenced to life in prison.

Fullmer says authorities issued an Amber Alert on Monday, June 23 after learning of a 2022 revelation by Jeffs.

Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE’s free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.   

“What the information we got was about this revelation that the children are supposed to gather to assist in the building of Zion so that they can die and become pure and translated beings,” says Fullman. “We don’t have any concept of when, how quickly children should be gathered and brought back to the church so that they can die and become pure beings.”

The teens’ older sister, Elantra Dee Fischer, 18, was reported missing on Jan. 1, 2023.

“She actually took the vehicle and left it somewhere along the route and got another ride somewhere or by somebody and left her mom a note that she was leaving to go back to the FLDS and that she would pay for gas,” says Fullmer.

Anyone with information about the missing teens is asked to call the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office at (208) 745-9210.