After months of investigation stretching from Idaho to Arizona to Hawaii, the bodies of two missing children that may belong to Lori Vallow's children were found. Vallow's current husband, Chad Daybell, has been charged in connection to the disappearance of Vallow’s two children: Tylee Ryan and Joshua “JJ” Vallow.
On Wednesday, Daybell was arrested and charged with two counts of destroying evidence one day after the remains of two children were found on his Idaho property. According to Fremont County Prosecutor Rob Wood, the remains have not been positively identified. The charges against Daybell allege that he concealed the remains sometime between September 2019 and June 2020, and his bail was set to $1 million.
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Tylee and JJ were last seen in September 2019 — Tylee on September 8 during a family visit to Yellowstone National Park, and JJ at his school in Idaho later that month, according to authorities. After Vallow and Daybell fled to Hawaii in late 2019, security camera footage published by the East Idaho News, shows Vallow putting away items belonging to her children in a storage locker, causing further speculation that she was involved in their disappearance.
Vallow and Daybell have remained inconsistent in statements regarding Tylee and JJ’s whereabouts throughout the investigation. First, they told authorities that the two children were with relatives in Arizona. Later, Daybell allegedly told someone that Vallow didn’t have kids. Vallow allegedly told someone else that her daughter died more than a year earlier, reports ABC News.
On January 25, 2020, investigators stopped Vallow and Daybell in Hawaii and served them with a court order to present Tylee and JJ to Idaho authorities by January 30. Vallow was extradited back to Idaho and jailed in February 2020 after failing to produce her children for the welfare check requested after relatives told police they hadn’t heard from Tylee and JJ in two months. This amounted to suspicion — even from family members — that Vallow and Daybell were behind their children's disappearance, and fear that neither were alive.
Vallow is currently on trial for multiple charges related to her children's disappearance, including two felony counts of desertion and nonsupport of children. But her and Daybell are suspected to have radical “doomsday beliefs” with ties to a doomsday preparation group, now dubbed a religious cult, known as “Preparing a People.”
Beyond the disappearance of Vallow's children, a number of unexplained tragedies and conspiracy theories surrounded the couple in recent years. Divorce documents filed by Vallow’s late husband, Charles Vallow, say that she believes she is “a god assigned to carry out the work of the 144,000 at Christ’s second coming in July 2020.” He was shot and killed by Vallow's brother, Alexander Cox, in July 2019 who claims it was self-defense. In the divorce papers, Charles said he feared for his life. Daybell authored apocalyptic novels “based loosely on Mormon religious theology.” His late wife unexpectedly died three weeks before he married Vallow.
Vallow remains in prison throughout trial proceedings. Now in custody, Daybell’s bail is set at $1 million.
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