Lori Vallow Daybell is putting up a fight in her Idaho criminal case.
“As with any citizen of our Country, Mrs. Daybell is entitled to all the privileges and rights that accompany our cornerstone belief of innocents [sic], until proven beyond a reasonable doubt otherwise,” attorney Mark Means said in a statement obtained by ABC News. “It is this innocence that Mrs. Daybell assertively maintains regarding all charges.”
The lawyer said that his client was “guaranteed access to a fair and impartial judicial process,” adding, “There is no room in the process for conjecture, innuendos, and or speculation to alter this Constitutionally guaranteed process.”
The statement didn’t address the specifics of the allegations against his client. Vallow Daybell was arrested for desertion and other charges amid the disappearances of son Joshua Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 17. Cops in Rexberg, Idaho said the kids were last seen in September and that the defendant left town instead of helping officials locate the children. The circumstances of their last known whereabouts are a little murky. Investigators said they could account for Joshua’s locations into the 23rd, but the most recent evidence of Tylee’s existence was a Sept. 8 family trip to Yellowstone National Park.
The defendant’s new husband Chad Daybell previously told the outlet that the children are “safe,” but he didn’t elaborate. Means didn’t immediately respond to a Law&Crime request for comment. He is currently the only attorney on the case. Co-counsels Edwina Elcox and Brian Webb recently left the case.
We’d also be remiss if we didn’t discuss the killing hanging in the back of it all. Joshua’s adopted father — Vallow Daybell’s fourth husband Charles Vallow — was shot and killed July 11 by the defendant’s brother, Alex Cox, when the family lived in Arizona. No charges were filed. The shooter claimed self-defense.
The defendant moved to Idaho with her kids less than two months later. She married Daybell (her fifth husband) on November 5 in Kauai, Hawaii, returned to Idaho, then left Idaho again in late November when police started looking into the kids’ whereabouts. Police arrested her in Kauai, Hawaii in February, then extradited her back to Idaho. It’s been awkward attempting to describe her residence for identification purposes; in less than a year, she’s been an Arizona-turned-Idaho-turned-Hawaii-turned-Idaho woman.
Cox died in December. According to police, his girlfriend’s son called 911, and said he found Cox passed out in a bathroom. Investigators have also been taking a second look at the October death of Daybell’s previous wife Tammy Daybell, and 2018 passing of Joseph Ryan, who was Tylee’s father and Vallow Daybell’s former husband.
[Image via Madison County, Idaho Jail.]
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