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Watch: Lori Vallow Daybell Appears in Court on New Charges

 

Lori Vallow Daybell, 46, is scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday, the day after she was hit with more charges related to the disappearances and deaths of her children Joshua JJVallow and Tylee Ryan.

The hearing is set for 6:30 p.m. ET/4:30 p.m. MT.

The probable cause affidavit submitted by Lt. Ron Ball of the Rexburg Police Department said that Lori Vallow Daybell, her husband Chad Daybell, and Lori’s since-deceased brother Alex Cox “conspired to commit the crime of concealing and destroying/altering evidence they knew would be produced, used, or discovered as evidence in trial, proceeding, inquiry or investigation involving felony.”

Cox shot and killed Lori’s previous husband Charles Vallow–JJ’s adoptive dad–on July 11, 2019. Cox, who insisted the killing was in self-defense, died in Dec. 2019 of causes that were initially unclear. A medical examiner ruled in May that Cox died of “natural causes.” The Vallow homicide occurred at the Arizona home where Lori lived with the children, cops said.

In Sept. 2019, just months after Charles Vallow’s death, JJ and Tylee went missing. Authorities have said from the start that the children were 7 and 17 years old, but Lt. Ball said that investigators now have reason to believe that Tylee Ryan was killed before her 17th birthday (Tylee was born on 9/24/2002).

“Tylee was 16 years old at the time she went missing and JJ was years old when he went missing. Until this time law enforcement has stated that Tylee was 17 at the time she went missing because we were not aware she was missing until several months after her seventeenth birthday. However, we now have reason to believe she was killed before her seventeenth birthday,” according to the affidavit.

Lori Vallow Daybell was first arrested in February in a felony child desertion case. Despite the children’s disappearance, their mother didn’t help search for them. Instead, she married Chad Daybell in Nov. 2019 and left Idaho for Hawaii. As for Chad Daybell, he said almost nothing about the children when asked. He cryptically said in March that they were “safe.”

In June 2020, authorities executed a search warrant that ultimately to the discovery of human remains on Chad Daybell’s property. Days after the discovery, authorities confirmed that JJ and Tylee were dead.

The news about the new charges against Lori Vallow Daybell came on the same day that authorities executed yet another search warrant at her husband’s home. Chad Daybell, 51, was charged weeks ago with two felony counts of destruction, alteration, or concealment of evidence.

Rexburg, Idaho authorities still haven’t filed murder charges against the couple, but Lori Daybell has now also been charged with two felony counts of destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence.

[Image via Madison County Sheriff’s Office]

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Matt Naham is the Senior A.M. Editor of Law&Crime.