Idaho children Joshua “JJ” Vallow, 7, and his sister Tylee Ryan, 17, remain missing, and no one is more astounded than their family members, especially big brother Colby Ryan. He spoke to Dateline in a new interview, and voiced frustration with the woman at the center of it all: his mother, Lori Vallow Daybell.
“Like, how do you not produce the kids?” he said. “That’s the whole reason you’re in jail in the first place right now.”
The episode is set to air in full at 9 p.m. EST Friday on NBC.
Indeed, Vallow Daybell bolted out of town instead of helping police in Rexburg, Idaho find the kids, cops said. She and her new husband Chad Daybell allegedly called a friend at separate times, and told her to say that Joshua was with her. Chad Daybell hasn’t been charged, but Lori Vallow Daybell remains locked up lieu of a $1 million bond. Joshua and Tylee went missing in Sept. 2019, less than two months after their mom’s previous husband Charles Vallow was shot and killed by their maternal uncle Alex Cox when the family lived in Arizona. Cox ended up dead in December, and his passing remains under investigation.
Needless to say, there’s a lot going on in this story. In any case, Vallow Daybell has said through an attorney that she’s innocent. Chad Daybell has cryptically said the kids are safe.
Meanwhile, Colby Ryan has been frustrated with his mother for a long while. One might even describe him as fed up.
“I feel ignored,” he said in a Jan. 31 report from KTVB after his mother allegedly snubbed an Idaho court order to turn over the children. “Angry. I feel like I’m so confused, and I’m still trying to just go on every single day.”
Asked if there was a reason for her to harm her children, Colby said no.
“I feel like my mom would die for the kids,” he told Fox 10 Phoenix in a Feb. 2020 interview. “So to see this and hear it, and also be questioning why they’re not being found, that’s where all this comes into a battle between what you think and what you feel.”
Colby Ryan claimed, however, that his mother told him over the phone that his stepfather Charles Vallow died of a heart attack, not because he was shot and killed.
“Why would you not tell me what was going on?” Ryan said in the interview. “This is worse. This is a million times worse than what you said.”
His frustration has not passed.
“It hurts so much,” he told Dateline. “And on top of that, we have a million questions. So you can’t call your own mom. You can’t go to your house–or her house–and see your siblings. You’re just out in the cold.”
[Screengrab via Dateline]
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