KAUA’I, Hawaii, Feb. 26, 2020 (Gephardt Daily) — A judge in Hawaii has rejected a second request that bail for Lori Vallow — the Idaho mother whose two children have been missing since September — be reduced from $5 million to an amount she can hope to pay.
In another development, Vallow’s attorney told the judge Vallow now agrees to be extradited to Idaho, a move she had previously fought. Vallow now wants to expedite the process, her attorney said.
Vallow, the mother of 7-year-old J.J. Vallow and 17-year-old Tylee Ryan, originally told police who responded to the Rexburg apartment she shared with new husband Chad Daybell, that J.J. was visiting someone in another state.
When police checked with the person named, they learned the child had not been visiting. Rexburg police returned to the Vallow-Daybell apartment the next day and found the couple had packed up and left.
Vallow and Daybell were later located in Kaua’i, Hawaii, and police there served a court order for Vallow to appear in Madison County, Idaho, by Jan. 20, to explain the whereabouts of her children and to establish they were being cared for.
After Vallow, 46, failed to comply with the order, she was arrested in Hawaii on two felony counts of desertion and non-support of dependent children, among other crimes.
Related development
In related news, Brandon Boudreaux, the ex-husband of Vallow’s niece, Melani Pawlowski, has filed court documents that allege Melani knows what happened to J.J. and Tylee.
The documents, filed in a custody case over the couple’s children, say that “knowledge of the whereabouts of her aunt’s two missing children and her unwillingness to cooperate with law enforcement in finding those children is daunting to father.”
Boudreaux’s statement also said ex-wife Melani is “heavily” involved in a doomsday cult in which “numerous members, adults and children alike, have been being killed off like flies.”
On Wednesday, an attorney for Melani Pawlowski issued a response to that accusation:
“Melani … strenuously denies the innuendos and allegations that she knows the whereabouts of the missing Vallow kids and that she has been involved in any wrongdoing.”
Vallow timeline
A timeline of events in the Lori Vallow case follows:
• 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 was last seen earlier in September.
• On Oct. 10, 2019, Chad Daybell’s wife, Tammy Daybell, died suddenly outside the family’s home. Initially it was believed the death was due to natural causes, which are now being investigated as suspicious.
Fourteen days after 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 himself died in early December 2019. No cause of death has been released.
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.
Gephardt Daily will have more on this developing story as information is made available.
