- [Host] What is up ** crew?
Today we are exploring the dark case of Lori Vallow.
Riddled with multiple mysterious deaths, doomsday fears
and two missing children.
The unbelievable case of a 46-year old mother, Lori Vallow
has stayed in the headlines across the nation
for more than six months.
In September of 2019, Idaho officials
began looking into the disappearance of 7-year old
Joshua J.J. Vallow and 17-year old Tylee Ryan.
Preceding their reported disappearance,
their mother, Lori Vallow, had unenrolled J.J.
from Kennedy Elementary School a day before he was last seen
playing in their front yard,
claiming that she was planning to start home schooling
the second grader.
♪ Da da da da da da da ♪
♪ Doo doo doo doo ♪
- [Narrator] Vallow had also given away
her son's service dog,
stating that they were choosing to go
in a different direction in order to support J.J's autism.
- J.J., what's your new favorite toy?
Show Mama and Paw Paw.
- [Narrator] Tylee Ryan on the other hand
was last seen two weeks before her brother's disappearance
visiting Yellowstone National Park.
It was first unclear as to whether or not Tylee
had been alone when she visited the park.
But police have since asked for photos
from the day of her disappearance.
Once the pictures surfaced on iCloud,
it become apparent that Lori Vallow, Alex Cox,
Vallow's brother, and J.J. were all with Tylee
when she was last seen.
When authorities showed up at the Vallow home
responding to a concerned report of the missing children,
Lori Vallow and her partner, Chad Daybell,
claimed that the two kids had moved to Arizona
to live with extended family.
However, it had in fact been the children's grandmother
in Arizona, who initially called to report
her grandchildren missing,
as she was surprised she had not heard from J.J.
in quite some time.
When law enforcement returned the next day
to further question the suspicious couple,
they discovered that the two had abruptly fled the scene.
In a statement in early January, Rexburg police said,
"We strongly believe that Joshua and Tylee's lives
are in danger."
- [Narrator] On January 25th, 2020, police discovered
Vallow and Daybell driving near a beach in Kauai, Hawaii.
- [Female Newscaster] We're also learning what police found
when they searched the couple's rental car
on the island last month.
According to the affidavit,
police found both Tylee and J.J.'s birth certificates
as well as J.J.'s iPad and a credit or debit card
belonging to Tylee.
- [Narrator] An immediate search of their car
was performed on scene,
but no trace of the two missing children was found.
Vallow was quickly served with a court order
demanding that she produce the children
to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare
by January 30th, or face legal action.
Mysteriously, Vallow missed this deadline.
Does this mean that the mother of the two
could not have succeeded in producing J.J. and Tylee
even if she had wanted to?
If she knows more about the whereabouts
of her missing children,
she is clearly willing to be charged
to avoid coming clean about the information.
Although perhaps she has no choice
but to accept the charge if her only other option
would be to admit something much darker.
After the supposed disappearance of her children,
Lori Vallow decided to tie the knot
to what would become her fifth husband, Chad Daybell.
- I recently released my autobiography,
entitled "Living on the Edge of Heaven",
where I tell more about my two near death experiences
and how that prompted me to write my novels.
- [Narrator] Marrying on November 5th, 2019,
the newlyweds shared smiling beach photos
amid the chaos of the world,
berating them for answers about J.J. and Tylee.
- [Reporter] There's people around the country
praying for your children, praying for you guys,
why don't you give us answers?
- That's great.
- [Narrator] The two had been married
just over a month after Lori's own children went missing.
In only a few short weeks after Chad's former wife,
Tammy Daybell, died unexpectedly in their Idaho home
of reportedly natural causes.
She was only 49 years old
and was apparently found dead in her bed.
According to Fremont County Sheriffs,
family members declined an autopsy.
Even stranger yet, is that Lori's former and fourth husband,
Charles Vallow, met his demise in July of 2019
at the hands of Lori's own brother, Alex Cox.
- [Dispatcher] Do you need police or paramedics?
- [Alex] Both, police and an ambulance.
- [Dispatcher] What's the emergency there?
- [Alex] I got in a fight with my brother-in-law
and I shot him in self-defense.
- [Officer] What happened today, how did it get to this?
- [Alex] I don't know, he was enraged.
- [Officer] Well what's going on, what happened?
- [Alex] I was talking with my sister earlier.
- [Officer] What happened today though?
Like, just in the last 20 minutes.
- [Alex] He came at me with a bat.
- [Officer] Was he living here?
Or visiting? - No.
He came to pick up his son.
- Okay, is the son inside? - No.
[Narrator] Charles Vallow accused Lori in divorce papers
of joining a doomsday cult,
declaring herself God sent to prepare the world
for a July 2020 apocalypse and claiming that he feared
she would kill him.
After Charles Vallow's death, Alex Cox told police
that 17-year old Tylee had taken a metal baseball bat
to defend her mother when her stepfather came too close.
- [Officer] Sounds like this, her brother, okay?
So brother, sister and niece, husband, estranged,
doesn't live here, lives in Texas, just visiting.
I guess there was a DV earlier this morning.
Brother kind of broke 'em up,
said it was getting a little bit physical with the wife.
'Cause wife and husband, they're kind of separated.
Okay, he lives out of state,
I don't know why he's here to visit.
I don't have those details.
Ultimately he came over, they got into a verbal argument.
Wife, husband got into a verbal argument.
Brother steps in and says, "Just get the (beep) out."
At some point the niece grabs the bat
and starts poking her dad, dad takes the bat away.
They decide to leave, everyone leaves.
There's a son too, a younger son, her son.
He's not here either.
So, wife who lives here, her daughter, her son,
they all leave.
Her brother, staying here visiting and the husband.
They get into it, he says they got in an argument,
husband hit him in the head with a bat.
The bat's right there.
Brother, brothers says, "(beep) that", goes to his room,
grabs his gun, his own gun, goes back out,
doesn't stay in, doesn't lock the door, doesn't call us.
Goes back out, confronts him, says "drop the bat".
Guy doesn't drop the bat, he says he shoots him.
Goes back into his room, puts his gun away,
grabs his phone, cleans his head up, calls 9-1-1.
- [Narrator] Cox never spent any time in jail
and was never investigated for the death of Charles Vallow.
Just hours later after her ex-husband lay dead in her home,
neighbors witnessed something utterly bizarre.
Lori was throwing a pool party in her backyard,
as though nothing had even happened.
In police body cam footage, you can see Lori
appearing to be quite relaxed about the entire ordeal,
even smiling and laughing and a point in the video.
- [Officer] How long have you lived here?
- Like three weeks.
- [Officer] Oh geez, yeah, okay.
- That's why the neighbors don't know us very well.
- Gotcha. - Like, hi neighbor, sorry.
- [Officer] Are you working at all?
- Uh, no.
- [Officer] Okay, and you're still about 5'6", 120?
- [Narrator] Lori Vallow informed Charles Vallow's children
from a previous marriage
of his death through a text message the following day.
If Tylee and Jacob were witnesses to this horrific crime,
could this have something to do
with their strange disappearances?
The insane twist of this story
simply continued building complexity and amazement
as time presses on.
On December 11, 2019, police announced the exhumation
of Tammy Daybell's body,
with intent to investigate her death
amidst the disappearance of J.J. and Tylee
and the marriage of Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell.
Unbelievably, Alex Cox passed away the very next day
on December 12th.
- [Female Dispatcher] 9-1-1 where is your emergency?
- [Boy] I have a older male here named Alex,
he just passed out here on my bathroom.
- [Female Dispatcher] Okay, is he awake right now?
- [Boy] I think he's passed out.
- [Female Dispatcher] You put your mom on the phone?
- [Boy] She's right here, you're on speaker.
- [Female Dispatcher] Okay, Ma'am,
the paramedics are pulling up, but in the meantime,
we need him to get flat on his back
and we need to give him chest compressions, okay?
- [Boy] Chest compressions.
- [Narrator] It has since been speculated
that perhaps Lori's brother Alex
had something to do with the mysterious death
of Chad Daybell's former wife.
Sources close to Lori Vallow have disclosed
that she even began shopping for rings
before the death of Tammy Daybell.
- [Female Reporter] One of the purchases
was a malachite gemstone ring for $35,
shipped to her new Rexburg, Idaho address.
All of this on October 2nd, about two weeks before
Chad's wife Tammy died in her sleep.
Both deaths of Alex Cox and Tammy Daybell,
continue to be under investigation and autopsy reports
have not yet been released.
Authorities additionally discover that Lori Vallow
had signed a $53 per month rental agreement
for a 10 x 10 unit at Self Storage Plus in Rexburg, Idaho.
The company released security camera footage,
showing Lori Vallow and a man resembling her brother,
Alex Cox, visiting the unit nine times in October
and once in November.
- [Male Newscaster] There with a man,
who appears to be her brother, Alex Cox.
His truck is spotted on camera several times
during the month.
- [Narrator] The two moved items, including gun cases
in and out of the unit.
Cox was also seen visiting the unit alone.
Police promptly executed a search warrant on the unit
and inside they found bikes, a scooter, winter clothing,
a photo album with pictures of J.J. and Tylee,
sports equipment, a backpack with J.J.'s initials
and a jersey with a name of Colby Ryan,
Lori's eldest son, who's 23.
Colby Ryan has separately appealed to his mother
and the general public throughout a collection
of various heartbreaking YouTube videos,
one of which is titled "Mom", and consists of Colby
begging his mother to come forward with anything she knows
so this nightmare can end for everyone.
- I want you to end this. I want you to end it.
For everybody. For the kids, for yourself, for all of us.
This can end, so please.
- [Narrator] In disbelief, Colby states
how everything has been different
since Tylee and J.J.'s disappearance
and that he wishes for everything to come to an end.
In early February, Idaho police report
finding Tylee's cell phone with Vallow and Daybell.
And that it had been used
after the 17-year old's disappearance.
In October, a month after Tylee disappeared,
two small Venmo payments were made from Tylee's phone
to a family member.
And on October 25th, a text was allegedly sent
from the phone to a concerned friend,
"Hi, miss you guys too. Love ya."
According to the report,
the friend found the text suspicious.
As police continued following scattered bread crumbs,
they discover Lori Vallow's niece, Melani Pawlowski.
Pawlowski was wrapped up in a custody battle for her kids
with her ex-husband Brandon, in October of 2019.
Brandon alleged in court documents that his ex-wife
had knowledge of the whereabouts of Tylee and J.J.,
but was unwilling to cooperate with law enforcement.
Brandon also claimed Pawlowski also had
a million dollars of reasons to have him killed,
as she was hoping to cash in on the policy
to help support the cult.
Similar cult talk continued to resurface
around the investigation of the missing children.
It seemed to stem from Lori Vallow's
fifth and current spouse, Chad Daybell.
Daybell and his former wife Tammy, who's now deceased,
had founded Spring Creek Book Company,
which allowed Chad to publish several religious theme novels
about the end times.
This led authorities and the public to wonder if Lori Vallow
had gotten mixed up in a cult-like community
that was responsible for the disappearance of her children.
On February 20th, 2020, Lori Vallow was arrested in Hawaii,
on two felony counts of desertion and non-support
of dependent children,
as well as resisting or obstructing police officers,
criminal solicitation to commit a crime
and contempt of court.
She is being held on a five million dollar bond
at the Kauai Community Correctional Center.
Her husband, Chad Daybell, has not been arrested
and has not been named as a suspect
in connection with Tammy Daybell's death.
Lori as since been extradited to Idaho
to face charges tied to the disappearance
of her two children.
But as time goes on,
more and more disturbing details are emerging.
According to Brandon, Lori thought her children
were possessed and were zombies.
According to court documents, zombies are described as
"human bodies that have had their original spirits
"forced from them and have been possessed,
"by either a demon, a disembodied spirit
"or a worm or slug."
The document states that Lori shared concerns
that she's been told Brandon needed to die,
and that may indicate that Tylee and J.J.
needed to die as well.
These documents also describe Lori's cult-like religion
as believing in teleportation and dark and light portals.
The couple's attorney issued a statement saying,
"Chad Daybell is a loving husband
"and has the support of his five children in this matter.
"Lori Daybell is a devoted mother
"and resents assertions to the contrary.
"We look forward to addressing the allegations
"once they have moved beyond speculation and rumor."
Now, let's get into the theories.
The first and most unfortunate theory
as to where the two missing children are,
points a very murderous finger at Lori Vallow.
Perhaps the two children were seen as witnesses
for the 2019 attack and killing of Charles Vallow.
And Lori and her brother created an elaborate scheme
to get rid of them.
If Tylee was last seen at the entrance
to Yellowstone National Park,
perhaps searches should narrow in on this location
in hopes of recovering the bodies of both J.J. and Tylee.
A second theory is that the two children
are being held somewhere in an undisclosed location,
perhaps even voluntarily,
and waiting for the supposed July doomsday
that Lori and Chad seem to be so committed to preparing for.
Maybe the couple was taking their last vacation to Hawaii,
and refusing to answer questions about their children
with the true belief
that the world will be ending come July.
As insane as this theory may appear,
perhaps two misguided adults have so deeply lost themselves
in the world of religious fantasy,
that this scenario presented itself
plausibly in their minds.
Perhaps some answers may surface from the two
about the whereabouts of the children come July.
We also cannot ignore the fact
that they both believed that the children were zombies,
which may have played a part in their disappearance.
Maybe Tylee Ryan determined she would be safer running away
from the life she was living with her mother.
Perhaps the 17-year old sought out a means of escape,
to protect both herself and her younger brother J.J.
and she went back for him a few weeks
after her own disappearance.
This theory would present the most positive outcome,
but if this is the case, what is keeping the children
from harboring with relatives and coming clean
about their escape.
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