Lori Vallow is scheduled to appear in an Idaho court Friday afternoon at 2 p.m. MT / 4 p.m. ET. You can watch it in the player above.
She is charged for allegedly deserting her children Joshua “JJ” Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 17. The kids were last seen in September, authorities said. Cops in Rexburg, Idaho claim that the defendant bolted out of town instead of helping them find her son and daughter.
She turned up in Kauai, Hawaii, and stonewalled a media inquiry regarding her children’s whereabouts. Her new husband Chad Daybell–who she married about two weeks after his previous wife Tammy Daybell died, and weeks before Rexburg cops started looking into the children’s disappearance–has cryptically said that JJ and Tylee are safe.
The situation would be complicated even without the kids being missing. Lori Vallow’s brother Alex Cox shot and killed her then-husband Charles Vallow back when the family lived in Arizona on July 11. The defendant and her kids moved to Idaho soon after, and Cox (who claimed he slew his brother-in-law in self-defense) turned up dead in December of unclear causes. Police in Arizona have been looking into the circumstances surrounding the move, in connection to an investigation for a July 11 conspiracy to commit first-degree homicide.
Joshua Vallow and Tylee Ryan
Joshua Vallow has brown hair, has brown eyes, stands 4’0″, and weighs 50 pounds, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Tylee Ryan has blonde hair, has blue eyes, stands 5’0″, and weighs 160 pounds. Officials said the little brother “may be in need of medical attention.”
Cops say they haven’t found witnesses who’ve claimed to have seen JJ Vallow since September 24. Tylee Ryan’s whereabouts are even murkier. Investigators said the last proof of her location was a September 8 day trip to Yellowstone National Park. She went there with her brother, her mother, and her uncle Alex Cox. The Federal Bureau of Investigation released new photos on Thursday from the trip, and of the pickup truck the family took there.
“The group was traveling in a silver, 2017 Ford F-150 pickup, with Arizona license plate CPQUINT,” the FBI said in a statement obtained by Law&Crime. It was Cox’s vehicle, according to authorities. Investigators request that anyone with photos or video of the family’s trip, the truck, or the like go to the Rexburg Police Department at (208) 359-3000 or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-843-5678 (1-800-THE-LOST), say federal investigators.
[Mugshot via Vallow via Kauai Police Department; images of the kids via National Center for Missing and Exploited Children]
