Two missing Ohio children turn up in Iceland three months after they vanished

Two Ohio siblings who went missing in October were found with their mother, thousands of miles away in Iceland.

The unnamed two kids, aged eight and nine years old, were reported missing to the Canton Police Department on October 25.

The report claimed their 34-year-old mother stopped taking her mental health medication, abandoned her apartment, and the children stopped attending school.

The U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) said the missing children were initially tracked to Denver, Colorado.

From there, investigators learned the three traveled to London, England, and then to the Island of Jersey on the English Channel. 

The group then traveled to a remote fishing village in Iceland, and was finally located by Icelandic Police at a hotel in Reykjavik on January 10. 

'Icelandic officials were kind of keeping track of them and their location until we could get the proper court orders for them to be able to take the children into custody,' Canton Police Captain John Bosley told News5Cleveland.

The USMS said the children were placed in the care of Iceland social services until a trusted family member could get them. Their mother's identity has not been disclosed.

The mother was placed in a hospital, where she will remain until she is well enough to travel back to the U.S. 

'The collaboration of effort in this case can't be overstated. The ability to respond and recover these children abroad is an extremely difficult task,' U.S. Marshal Pete Elliott said.

'Our investigators did an outstanding job. We are lucky to have such strong and dedicated law enforcement partners, and credit should be given to them for helping bring these children home.' 

Bosley noted he has never worked on a case like this with so many different offices playing a role in his career. 

'In my almost 27 years of being in law enforcement, I've never had a case or been associated with a case like this, where you have multiple jurisdictions involved, multiple locations throughout our country, and then obviously other countries as well,' he said.

In September, three Utah children who mysteriously disappeared over two years ago have been found alive in a tiny, unassuming desert town just south of the Arizona-Utah border.

The children strangely vanished two years ago in October 2022 from their home in Beaver County, Utah, prompting a years-long search that has finally met its end.

A tip received by local police in late August alerted the officials to the possible whereabouts of the children.

At the time, police believed that the children's father may have 'orchestrated the disappearance and subsequent hiding' of his three kids.

Authorities discovered the missing children in Fredonia, Arizona, a small desert town less than five miles from the Arizona-Utah border, in the custody of their grandmother.

Upon further investigation, the Fredonia Police Department learned that the children had been intentionally concealed from the rest of the world as family members helped hide their location.

The unnamed children's grandmother and aunt were both arrested in connection to the 2022 disappearance. Meanwhile, their father remains at large.

The children were said to be living with the Fundamentalist Latter-day Saint church. This religious movement has often been compared to a cult for its involvement in various illegal activities, including child marriages, child abandonment, sexual assault and human trafficking.

A press release issued by the department stated that in a joint effort, both the Arizona and Utah law enforcement agencies were able to liberate the children on September 1. The children have since reunited with their mother.