And the other thing I got out of that article is that the two arrestee's had left Utah in October. Who knows what other kinds of illegal acts they were up to between Logan, UT and Corpus Christi, TX. I There's a lot of land there. It's not clear where their original trailer came from.
He also was not able to legally drive so there's another reason to keep her around for a driving trip. And yes, the comment about taking the kid into Mexico as a kind of "hostage" to keep AN under his thumb makes sense to me.