The search for a missing Southern California mother came to a grim end this weekend when her body was discovered in the Angeles National Forest. Now, authorities say her husband is the prime suspect — and he’s fled to Peru with the couple’s three children.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department confirmed that the remains of 33-year-old Sheylla Cabrera, also known as Sheylla Lisbet Gutiérrez Rosillo, were found Saturday by the Montrose Search and Rescue Team. Her body was discovered at the bottom of an embankment, wrapped in some kind of material. Investigators haven’t yet released an official cause of death, but the county medical examiner’s office is conducting an autopsy.

Cabrera had been reported missing on August 12. Just one day later, deputies reviewing surveillance footage from the Lancaster apartment complex where she lived with her husband and their three sons found chilling evidence: video showing a man identified as 36-year-old Jossimar Cabrera dragging a large object wrapped in material from the building.

By that point, investigators say, he was already gone. Authorities believe Cabrera fled the country with the children, heading to Peru where the family is originally from. The Peruvian Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations confirmed the boys have since been recovered and are safe in protective custody. But their father slipped away. Reports from Peruvian outlets say local authorities questioned him at the airport in Lima, but ultimately let him go.

That decision has sparked sharp criticism, particularly after the ministry posted about Sheylla Cabrera’s death on social media before her family was even formally notified.

The case has rattled Southern California, where friends and family say Sheylla endured years of domestic abuse but never reported it because she worried that bringing in the police would complicate her immigration status. According to friends, Sheylla had recently decided to leave her husband and was gathering important documents (birth certificates, Social Security cards) in order to make a clean break. Her friends believe that this is what set off her husband.

“She told her mom she didn’t want to be with him anymore,” one family friend said. “She was ready to report him. Maybe that was her mistake — to say it out loud. And now she’s gone.”

The Sheriff’s Department says it expects the District Attorney to file charges soon, which would trigger the process of extradition should Jossimar Cabrera be located in Peru.

For now, all investigators have to go on is grainy surveillance footage and the knowledge that this was a woman trying to make a better life for herself and her children.