The defense for Idaho criminal defendant Lori Norene Vallow (aka Lori Norene Daybell) is at Fremont County court claiming evidence is being withheld. The hearing is scheduled to begin at 11:30 a.m. EST / 9:30 a.m. MST. You can watch in the player above.
Vallow is charged in two counties in the disappearances and deaths of her children Joshua “JJ” Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 16, who went missing across September 2019. The victims were found dead on Fremont County property belonging to her most recent husband Chad Daybell, 52. Investigators said that Lori Vallow’s brother Alex Cox, who passed away in December 2019 of a blood clot, was at the children’s gravesites. They cite cell phone pings from September 9 and 23, the respective days after the last confirmed sightings of Tylee and Joshua.
No one has been charged with any sort of homicide. Authorities have not alleged how the kids died. Vallow’s previous husband Charles Vallow, the adoptive dad and biological granduncle of JJ, was shot and killed by Cox in July 2019 back when the family lived in Arizona. No charges were filed in that matter either. The shooter claimed self-defense, but the victim said earlier that year that Vallow had threatened to kill him.
Cox’s death leaves Vallow and Chad Daybell as the only defendants in the deaths of the children. In a filing obtained by the Law&Crime Network, Vallow attorney Mark Means claimed that Daybell attorney John Prior was mailed a hard drive of evidence on January 19. No such hard drive was given to Means’s office, however, according to the filing.
“On or about 1/19/21 (not 1/14/21 as identified by the prosecution) a hard drive with additional discovery records, documents, recordings, statements, phone calls, etc. was mailed to Defense Counsel Mr. John Prior, but to date, no additional hard drive/evidence provided to my office,” Means wrote. “This is another incident and action of the State to wrongfully withhold relevant and discoverable evidence in this matter with further obvious obstruction of the Defense/Defendant.”
Vallow is charged in Fremont County with two counts of conspiracy in the destruction, alteration, or concealment of evidence in connection to the children’s bodies. The trial for the misdemeanor case in Madison County, in connection to her allegedly snubbing authorities amid the disappearances, is scheduled to take place after the Fremont County matter.
[Mugshot via Madison County Sheriff’s Office]
