SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — Authorities say a missing 16-year-old Arizona boy from a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints family was found safe in Alaska.
Blaze Thibaudeau was found Friday night at the Alcan Port of Entry, on Alaska’s eastern border with Canada, East Idaho News reports.
The teenager was with his mother, Spring Thibaudeau, his uncle, Brook Hale, and his sister, Abi Snarr. The mother and sister were arrested on extradition warrants.
Thibaudeau had been missing since Oct. 23, when he was checked out of school in Gilbert, Arizona. The FBI and the Gilbert police sent out public notices, asking for help finding the teenager.
His father, Ben Thibaudeau, told East Idaho News that he believed his son was in danger as his wife and daughter held radical end-of-days beliefs. Specifically, he said, they thought the second coming of Jesus was imminent and Blaze Thibaudeau played some key cosmic role in the apocalypse.
Following Blaze Thibaudeau’s disappearance, an Arizona judge granted Ben Thibaudeau an emergency petition of custody for his son.
Additionally, Spring Thibaudeau and her daughter, Snarr, were both charged in Arizona with felony conspiracy to commit custodial interference and felony custodial interference.
According to Ben Thibaudeau, his wife and daughter took the family’s 16-year-old son on a flight to Idaho, where they met up with Hale. The group then traveled through Canada to the Alaskan border. Before their journey, they’d purchased thousands of dollars worth of survival gear.
In a tweet, the Gilbert Police Department thanked the public for their help finding Blaze Thibaudeau.
“Thank you to everyone who assisted by sharing information in our investigation to locate Blaze and reunite him with his father,” the tweet read.
