Wednesday was a tragic day in the case of missing Idaho siblings JJ Vallow and Tylee Ryan. Statements from both families confirmed that the two sets of children's remains found on Chad Daybell's property belonged to the kids. JJ would have turned 8 years old last week. Tylee would have celebrated her 18th birthday in September.
It's been seven months since police were first tipped off that the children were missing. Kay Vallow Woodcock, JJ's biological grandmother, asked for a wellness check on the children in November. She had been trying to get in contact with them since September, when both kids were last seen.
In the midst of all of this was Lori Vallow. People surrounding Lori, the children's mother, expressed concerns about her erratic behavior as she began becoming more involved in what many believe to be a doomsday cult. Chad drew Lori in, and the two married in November, weeks after Chad's wife died suddenly.
The two showed a picture-perfect look of a happily married couple. Still, they refused to answer for the kids' whereabouts. Now investigators and web sleuths alike are trying to untangle the web of death and destruction around the couple.
To understand the case surrounding JJ Vallow and Tylee Ryan's deaths, you have to understand the players. The two kids belonged to mom Lori Vallow. Lori had older son Colby and daughter Tylee in previous relationships before marrying Charles Vallow in 2006.
For a while, Lori and Charles were in love and enjoyed a beautiful marriage. In 2014, the couple would adopt Charles' biological nephew, JJ. The family lived in mainland US, then briefly moved to Hawaii before moving back and setting roots in Arizona. In 2018, while the family was living in Arizona, Tylee's biological father and Lori's third husband, Joseph Ryan, died.
Lori was involved in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Charles was supportive of her spiritual journey and converted when the two were married. In 2018, Lori traveled to an LDS conference in Utah with friend Melanie Gibb. There, she met Chad Daybell for the first time.
According to Melanie, the two immediately hit it off. Chad told Lori they had been married many times before in previous existences. "They started talking about these different beliefs that are not something you learn in church," she noted to EastIdahoNews.com.
From there, they exchanged numbers and began talking every day. Chad was married to his wife of 28 years, Tammy Daybell, at the time. The two shared five children, but no members of his family joined him at the conference.
Chad and Tammy ran Spring Creek Book Company, through which Chad published several books. She wasn't aware that he was speaking to Lori because he used a separate phone to do so, as did Lori to keep conversations from Charles.
As Lori became engulfed in Chad's teachings and strayed further from her church, the people in her life began to become concerned. Chad and Lori began making appearances together on the Preparing a People podcast, where they would discuss the end of the world, which they believed would occur in July 2020. They became more engulfed with preparing for that end.
Chad even convinced Lori that Charles was no longer himself, but possessed by an unclean spirit.
In February 2019, Charles filed for divorce. In the paperwork, Charles details some of Lori's beliefs, including the fact that she would kill him if he got in the way of her preparing for the second coming of Jesus Christ. Lori disappeared for two weeks that month, during which her whereabouts were unknown. She didn't take the kids with her. Charles would eventually call off the divorce in an effort to make things work with Lori.
Meanwhile, she was attracting other people into Chad's orbit. Her niece, Melani Boudreaux, filed for divorce from her husband, Brandon Boudreaux, in June 2019. The move came as a surprise to Brandon, who felt their marriage was stable. Later, he realized it was related to the "cult" her aunt had introduced her to.
In July, a 911 call revealed that Alex Cox, Lori's brother, had shot and killed Charles in a confrontation at the Vallow residence in Chandler, Arizona. Lori, Tylee, and JJ had been there during the incident. Lori left the scene to allegedly take JJ to school. When she returned, she corroborated Alex's story that he shot Charles in self-defense after Charles came after him with a bat. In light of these crimes, Charles' death is being reinvestigated.
By late August 2019, Lori moved herself, the kids, Alex, and niece Melani to Rexburg, Idaho. The townhouse development they moved to wasn't far from Chad's Salem, Idaho, home, where he still lived with Tammy. Lori enrolled JJ in school during the first days of September. Tylee, who had already gotten her GED, hadn't been enrolled anywhere.
On September 8, 2019, Lori and Alex took JJ and Tylee to Yellowstone National Park, about an hour from their area. Photos from the day are the last known sighting of Tylee, who was just weeks shy of her 17th birthday.
Melanie Gibb, Lori's friend, visited her in Idaho in mid-September. She noticed two strange things during the visit. One was that Lori and Chad would engage in PDA despite the fact that his wife was very much alive. The other was that Tylee wasn't around. Lori told Melanie that she'd enrolled in Brigham Young University-Idaho.
Later that day, Lori allegedly told Melanie that JJ had turned into a zombie, a term she used previously in relation to Charles and other people who had "unclean spirits" attached to them.
"She said that he had turned into a zombie the day before I got there, and she was pointing out behaviors of his," Melanie recalled. "She was trying to create uncertainty in me about what I saw. … I was looking at him and thought, 'I don't know. He looks just like JJ to me.'"
By September 23, Lori pulled JJ out of school, telling officials there that she would homeschool the autistic 7-year-old. It was the last time he was seen publicly.
In October, Lori rented a 10-by-10 storage unit. Both Lori and Alex would be seen coming and going from the storage unit throughout the month.
The day after the storage facility was rented, Brandon, niece Melani's ex-husband, reported he was shot at, with the bullet just missing his head. The attempted shooter was driving a Jeep registered to the then-deceased Charles Vallow. The same day, Lori bought a wedding ring from Amazon.
A week later, Tammy called 911 to report a masked man had shot at her with a paintball gun. She also shared this experience on Facebook.
On October 19, 10 days after Tammy reported the incident, her family called 911 to report she had died in her sleep. Investigators ruled the death as due to natural causes. It's since being reinvestigated, with Tammy's body exhumed from where it was laid to rest on October 22.
That same week, Tylee's friends reported receiving a single text from her that didn't match her usual way of speaking. Police would later find her phone in Lori's possession.
Following Tammy's death, Lori and Chad hopped on a plane to Hawaii, where they were married on November 5. People who encountered the couple in their travels would later report that Chad said Lori had no minor children. Some sources also told police Lori had told them Tylee died years prior. The couple returned to Idaho shortly after the ceremony.
Throughout this time, Charles' sister, Kay Vallow Woodcock, was trying to get in touch with JJ. She and her husband Larry Woodcock were JJ's biological grandparents and shared a very close relationship with him. In their last call with him, they felt something wasn't right.
The couple contacted Rexburg police for a wellness check, which was performed on November 26. Lori and Chad said that JJ was staying with family in Arizona, but when police followed up, they discovered he had not been where they said.
The next day, the Rexburg police were asked to carry out a search warrant on behalf of officers in Arizona. They discovered that Lori and Chad had abruptly left her residence. Later, they would learn the couple had returned to Hawaii.
On December 12, Lori's brother Alex Cox died. His death was ruled as natural causes.
Just days before Christmas, the Rexburg police went public with their search for JJ and Tylee. They named Lori and Chad as persons of interest. The police also said that they believed the children's disappearance was connected to the suspicious death of Tammy Daybell.
In late December, authorities also alerted the public to the fact that they had reason to believe Lori was aware of the children's whereabouts and that she refused to cooperate. They slammed her and Chad for leaving the state amid a missing children's investigation and called on them to come forward with the truth.
The Woodcocks offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of the kids. "These are beautiful young children. They're two extremely intelligent young children, and we want them back. We want them back in our family," Larry said during the press conference.
"We don't say the 'D word.' We don't want to and we're not going to because we truly believe and we hope and pray these kids are alive."
Lori and Chad continued to enjoy themselves in Hawaii. On January 25, the Kauai Police Department served Lori with a notice to produce JJ and Tylee to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare or Rexburg Police Department within five days. She failed to do so. The couple began being hounded by media in Hawaii as people asked the burning question, "Where are the children?"
Throughout February, the case gained steam. It all came to a head on February 20, when Kauai police arrested Lori on a $5 million warrant on two felony counts of desertion and nonsupport of dependent children. She was extradited to Idaho on March 5, where she is being held on $1 million bond.
On April 9, EastIdahoNews.com obtained a letter from Deputy Attorney General Colleen Zahn in response to Fremont County Prosecuting Attorney Marcia Murdoch. The letter stated that Lori and Chad were being investigated for conspiracy, attempted murder, and/or murder by the Idaho Attorney General's Office in relation to Tammy's death.
On May 25, family and friends gathered for a candlelight vigil at JJ's elementary school to mark his eighth birthday. In a statement made that evening, Kay and Larry called for an end to this painful saga.
"Lori and Chad, YOU can speak out to end this agony. We pray you feel the humanity and compassion God has instilled within you to bring this nightmare to a close. It is the Christian thing to do," they said.
On June 9, that agony reverberated through the hearts of everyone following this case. The FBI worked with local officials to search Chad's Salem property. Chad was brought in for questioning and was later arrested and charged with two felony counts of concealment or destruction of evidence.
The next day, officials confirmed that two sets of human remains were found on that property. Later, they confirmed that they belonged to children.
On Wednesday afternoon, the Woodcocks and the Ryans released a joint statement confirming that the remains belonged to JJ and Tylee.
"The Woodcocks and the Ryans are confirming that the human remains found by law enforcement on Chad Daybell's property are indeed our beloved JJ and Tylee. We are filled with unfathomable sadness that these two bright stars were stolen from us and only hope that they died without pain or suffering," they shared.
"Once officially confirmed, statements from the Rexburg Police, the Medical Examiner, and the FBI will be released. We ask that you respect our family's privacy while we grieve – we have only just been told of the loss of our loved ones and need time to process. We are not granting interviews at this time and hope you all understand that this is the worst news we will ever get in our lives and want to be left alone for the time being."
As one chapter of this story comes to a heart-wrenching end, another begins. So many people around the world have poured themselves into this case, and they won't stop until justice is served. Our deepest condolences go to all the families affected by this unthinkable tragedy. It is everyone's hope that they are brought closure as legal proceedings against Lori and Chad unfold.
