Lori Vallow extradition hearing set for Monday in Hawaii, judge refuses request to lower $5 million bail

Lori Vallow is shown in a Hawaii courtroom. Image: Court Pool

HAWAII, Feb. 21, 2020 (Gephardt Daily) — Officials on the island of Kaua’i held a news conference Friday explaining their involvement in the case of Lori Vallow, the Idaho woman whose two children mysteriously disappeared last September.

Vallow, 46, the mother of 7-year-old J.J. Vallow and 17-year-old Tylee Ryan, was arraigned earlier Friday on two charges each of felony desertion and non-support of minor children, as well as obstruction and contempt of court.

Kaua’i Police Chief Todd G. Raybuck told those attending the news conference that the job of the police in Hawaii was to support the Rexburg, Idaho, Police Department and the Madison County, Idaho, prosecuting attorneys. He made it clear his comments would pertain only to events in Hawaii.

The information he provided outlined events on the island since Vallow and her husband, Chad Daybell, arrived there.

In December 2019, Kaua’i police were contacted by the Rexburg Police Department and asked to locate the recently married couple, Chief Raybuck said.

Kaua’i police also were instructed to create an order “to compel her (Vallow) to produce her children,” and were asked to serve search warrants for the rented home Vallow and Daybell share in the unincorporated community of Princeville and on their vehicle.

Raybuck said the order and search warrants were enforced, and the information obtained was provided to the Rexburg police.

On Thursday, a warrant was issued for Lori Vallow, and Kaua’i detectives took her into custody in Princeville without incident, Raybuck said. After Friday’s hearing, she was transferred to the Kaua’i Community Correctional Center.

Kaua’i Prosecuting Attorney Justin Kollar said officials want Vallow extradited back to Idaho, and a hearing has been scheduled for March 2 to begin that process.

“The purpose is to validate that Lori Vallow is the person who came to Kaua’i from Idaho,” Kollar said. “The extradition proceeding concerns just getting her to Idaho. It won’t be adjudicating the case of the missing children.”

“We hope to have some kind of just resolution to this case, and we’re hoping against hope that Tylee and J.J. are out there somewhere,” he said.

Vallow is being held on $5 million bail, and her Kaua’i defense attorney Daniel Hempey was unable to persuade the judge to reduce her bail to $10,000.

The judge also required that Vallow surrender her passport as a condition of bail. Hempey said his client had no passport, and the prosecuting attorney noted that Vallow’s passport status should be independently verified.

Hempey stated during the Friday hearing that Vallow will fight extradition to Madison County, Idaho.

Chad Daybell, Vallow’s husband, whom she married 14 days after the suspicious Oct. 10, 2019, death of his wife, Tammy Daybell, has not been charged in the case.

Chief Raybuck told reporters the investigation is being conducted in Rexburg, so the Kaua’i Police Department is proceeding on their orders, and there have been no orders to take Chad Daybell into custody.

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 it is 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 has 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 story as information is made available.

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