Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow Daybell
Idaho authorities are taking a closer look at Lori Vallow Daybell and her new husband Chad Daybell. The state’s office of the attorney general is taking over an investigation into “conspiracy, attempted murder, and murder,” according to a letter obtained by The East Idaho News. This request was made by the Fremont County prosecutor’s office.
To be clear, no charges have been pressed in this matter.
Vallow Daybell is being prosecuted in Rexburg, Idaho (Madison County) for allegedly deserting her still-missing kids Joshua Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 17. She is asserting her innocence.
The possible alleged victim in this new AG investigation wasn’t named in the letter, but it’s worth mentioning that the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office in Idaho has been investigating the death of Chad Daybell’s late wife Tammy Daybell, who died in October, about two weeks before he married new wife Lori Vallow Daybell. Authorities took a second look at her passing, and exhumed her body from a Utah cemetery in December.
Chad Daybell’s attorney Sean Bartholick provided no comment to the News, and Vallow Daybell’s lawyer didn’t immediately respond to a Law&Crime request for comment.
This backstory of this situation is several layers of convoluted and messy. The short version is that Vallow Daybell’s kids went missing from Rexburg, Idaho in September. In fact, police say that the most recent proof of Tylee Ryan’s whereabouts was a September 8 family trip to Yellowstone National Park. As for Joshua, his location hasn’t been confirmed since the 24th.
The family was quite new to Idaho. They’d just moved there less than two months after Vallow Daybell’s brother Alex Cox shot and killed her estranged husband Charles Vallow at the family’s Arizona home on July 11. No charges were pressed in this matter, but a detective reportedly suggested in a March 24 email that they were getting closer to getting Vallow Daybell indicted in Charles’s death. In any case, Cox would never be charged: He died in December, having been found passed out in a bathroom by the son of his girlfriend, police said.
Fremont County Sheriff Len Humphries told the News that the autopsy of Tammy Daybell was still pending. Gilbert, Ariz. police spokesperson Brenda Carrasco told Law&Crime on Friday that autopsy results for Cox were still pending. Vallow Daybell has never publicly discussed the whereabouts of her children. Chad Daybell has only cryptically said that they’re safe.
[Screengrab via East Idaho News]