HAWAII, Feb. 21, 2020 (Gephardt Daily) — Lori Vallow, the Idaho woman whose two children were last seen in September, made her first court appearance in a Hawaii courtroom on Friday.
Vallow, mother of 7-year-old J.J. Vallow and 17-year-old Tylee Ryan, was arraigned on two charges each of charges of felony desertion and non support of minor children.
Vallow’s attorney revealed that Vallow will fight extradition to Madison County, Itaho, which issued the warrant for her arrest. A hearing was scheduled for March 2.
The attorney also asked that Vallow’s bail be reduced from the current $5 million to an amount she could pay, but which would still serve as a deterrent to missing her court date. The judge ruled Vallow’s bail would remain at $5 million.
The judge also required that Vallow, 46, surrendered her passport as a condition of bail. Vallow’s attorney said his client had no passport, and the prosecuting attorney noted that Vallow’s passport status should be independently verified.
Chad Daybell, Vallow’s husband, who she married 14 days after the suspicious Oct. 10, 2019 death of his wife, Tammy Daybell, has not been charged in the case.
A timeline of events in the case follows below:
• J.J. Vallow was last seen on Sept. 23, 2019, when he was un-enrolled from his Rexburg elementary school by his mother, Lori Vallow, who said she would be homeschooling her adopted son. Daughter Tylee Ryan also was last seen in September.
• On Oct. 10, 2019, Chad Daybell’s wife, Tammy Daybell, died suddenly outside the family’s home. It was initially believed the death was due to natural causes, but are now considered suspicious.
Within weeks of his wife’s death, Chad Daybell married Lori Vallow, whose previous husband, Charles Vallow, had been shot and killed during an alleged domestic argument earlier in the year in Gilbert, Arizona. The man who killed him was Alexander Cox, Vallow’s brother.
Cox, who police say was injured in the violent confrontation, claimed he shot her sister’s estranged husband in self-defense. He was never charged in the case.
Cox died in early December 2019. It’s unclear if his death was related to his injuries.
Chad Daybell, who at one time lived and worked in Utah, is an author of what has been described as religious-themed “doomsday” fiction.
• On Nov. 26, 2019, Rexburg Police officers responded to the Vallow-Daybell residence after family members requested a welfare check on J.J. Vallow and Tylee Ryan.
• The next day, police returned to the Vallow-Daybell residence with a search warrant, and found the couple had packed up and left. The children were not found, nor was evidence they had been living in the house, police said at the time.
• On Dec. 11, 2019, investigators exhumed Tammy Daybell’s body for an autopsy. The results have not yet been released.
• On Dec. 20, Rexburg police announced the search for J.J. Vallow and Tylee Ryan to the public, hoping for leads. The next day, police named Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell as persons of interest in the investigation.
• On Dec. 23, Rexburg attorney Sean Bartholick, reportedly hired by the couple, put out a statement on their behalf:
“Chad Daybell was a loving husband and has the support of his 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.”
The attorney also stated he did not know the couple’s location.
• On Dec. 31, Rexburg police issued a statement urging Lori Vallow to contact them because they believed she knew where the children are or what happened to them, they said.
• On Jan. 7 of this year, Kay and Larry Woodcock, the children’s grandparents, announced a $20,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of the children. Kay Woodcock said Lori was overwhelmed with caring for J.J., who had special needs.
• On Jan. 10, Matt Daybell, brother of Chad Daybell, urged his brother to cooperate with police in a news conference arranged by the East Idaho News.
• On Saturday, Jan. 25, Madison County authorities filed a child protection order on behalf of the missing children. The order required Lori Vallow to physically produce the children to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare in Rexburg or to the Rexburg Police within five days of being served with the order.
• The protective order was served on Sunday, Jan. 26, by officers of the Kaua’i, Hawaii, Police Department. “Kaua’i police served Vallow with an order of petition in an attempt to have her physically produce her children to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare,” says a Kaua’i Police statement posted on Facebook. “On Jan. 26, Kaua’i police and Rexburg police executed a search warrant in support of the ongoing investigation related to the whereabouts of the two children. There are no local charges or any current warrants of arrest.”
• A Rexburg Police Department statement issued on Jan. 27 says no evidence was found that J.J. or Tylee had ever been in Hawaii. It also said that, concerning the order to produce the children, “Failure to comply with this order may subject Lori Vallow to civil or criminal contempt of court.”
• On Feb. 10 officials found a cellphone belonging to Tylee Ryan, East Idaho News reported. The report said it appears her phone was found in Hawaii with her mother.The CBS News report said that Tylee Ryan’s phone was used several times after she disappeared, but it’s not clear at this time who was using it. Also in October, two small Venmo payments were reportedly sent from Ryan’s account to a family member.
The discovery of Ryan’s phone comes after items belonging to her and her brother were found abandoned inside a storage facility.
• On Feb. 16, Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell were allegedly seen leaving the gated community they had been living in in Kaua’i and were heading for Maui. The two islands are some 224 miles apart and can only be accessed by plane.
Gephardt Daily will have more on this developing story as information is made available.
