Victims of an alleged Rexburg kidnapping testify in court

A Utah mother is facing kidnapping and custody interference charges in Madison County Court.

Heather Anne John is accused of taking her two biological children and a 14-year-old.

It’s a custody case like Madison County has never seen before. Prosecutor Sid Brown said Heather Anne John only had supervised visitation rights of her two daughters, who live in Rexburg with their biological father, but that didn’t stop her from taking them.

Their father, Justin John, took the witness stand in court Tuesday. He said the night before he realized his daughters were missing, they had gotten into an argument about being able to call their mother on the phone.

Justin said after calling their friends and looking for them himself, he called police.

Detectives later discovered the children were with Heather.

Two of the children testified in court Tuesday. They indicated they were upset that they were not able to call their mother, so they decided to run away. They said they snuck out of their window around 11:30 p.m. and went to a stranger’s house, used their phone and called Heather, who made the drive from Utah to Idaho and picked up the children at around 5 a.m.

Police were able to track down Heather and the children and convince them to return to Rexburg nearly three weeks after the kids went missing. Heather was then arrested.

Heather Anne John will appear in district court on Monday Aug. 20 for arraignment.

This isn’t the first time Heather has done this. Police say she kidnapped her two biological daughters last December. No charges were ever filed in that case.