DURAND (WIFR) -- The troubled past of a Durand mom has caught up with her. Tonight we introduce you to Terry Swafford. She's been ordered to report to the Winnebago County Jail this weekend so she can be extradited to California for breaking the law when she was a teen.

It's one of the last times for a while Terry Swafford will welcome her son Shawn home from school.

She'll also give up helping with homework and any other job that comes with motherhood.

"I'm so scared to go back to California because that's just where everything started," she says.

It started at age seven when she and her twin brother Tommy were split up and sent to separate foster homes. They promised to reunite at 18. But that reunion never happened. Tommy was beaten to death over a bicycle, sending Terry's life spiraling out of control.

"After that I didn't care no more. I didn't have a mom or dad, I aged out of foster care. I was a homeless teenager, I wanted to be in jail, i wanted to be dead."

In 1999, Terry was convicted of burglary and sentenced to more than three years in the California Department of Corrections. She got out after a little more than a year, with the promise she attend a drug diversion program. A program she never completed.

"I had nobody when I got out, no where to go, I was afraid I was going to get back on drugs or start stealing. To this day I feel if I was still in California, I'd still be on drugs prison or death," says Terry.

So she moved to Illinois. Eventually Durand, nine years ago where she's since turned her life around. But her troubled past caught up with her in September. That's when she was pulled over for a loud muffler. California had issued a warrant for her not completing that drug program.

"The amount of time that's gone by doesn't change the fact she committed an offense, it was a felony and there's a consequence to pay for that," says Deputy Jason Ramos, Public Information Officer for the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department.

Winnebago County Sheriff's Deputies hauled her away, in front of her kids.

"I said son, I did something before you were born and this is why you never steal," says Terry.

Terry spent 40 days in the Winnebago County Jail waiting for California authorities to pick her up. They never showed, so she was let out.

But re-arrested for the same thing, three days later. She was released the following day

"We have called California repeatedly to let them know that she's sitting here. The information we got was they were having trouble with their transport company," says Winnebago County Sheriff Dick Meyers.

The Sacramento County Sheriff's Department is now pledging to come get her within one week. And upon her arrival, Terry will serve about a year and half in jail. The remainder of her original burglary sentence.

"She neglected to comply with the conditions of her parole. So to not do that and not hold people accountable sends a message that all people have to do is avoid or shirk their responsibility, run out of state for a while and they avoid the consequences for their actions and I don't think that's an appropriate message to send to people who violate the law," says Deputy Ramos.

Sacramento County Spokespeople call Terry's situation an anomaly. An unfortunate one, to her family and members of the community.

"People that grow up the way Terry grew up, the odds are against them and she broke out of that, she has created a life in the way the State of California or the State of Illinois could never be able to do. They couldn't have taught her how to live the right way, the way she's learned on her own," says Pastor Warren McCosky of Cornerstone Foursquare Church in Durand.

Terry will most likely serve her year-and-a-half sentence in a county jail in Elk Grove, California instead of prison. California has such a huge overcrowding problem in its prison system, it's sending inmates to county jails. Some inmates are even getting out early

From earlier...
DURAND (WIFR) -- This is a rare case of the past catching up to you: a Durand mom must turn herself in to police this weekend to begin extradition proceedings for not completing a court order from 12 years ago.

Terry Swafford said, Deep down I know it was wrong, but I feel like I was running from my life. I felt like I had nothing there.”

Swafford served a year and a half in a California prison for burglary in 1999. She was supposed to complete a drug diversion program, but she didn't and instead moved to Illinois to be with her sisters. Even after all of this time California wants her back.

Pastor Warren McCosky from Cornerstone Foursquare Church said, "All it does is recreate the cycle for another generation, another broken home and this isn't a home you want to break. This is a good home. They’re doing things the right way."