A mother who was ordered by a judge to return to Idaho and answer to the whereabouts of her two missing children has been arrested in Hawaii, where she’s been staying with her new husband, according to reports.
In a warrant issued by Madison County, Idaho, Lori Vallow, 46, faces two felony counts of desertion and nonsupport of dependent children.
She was also charged with resisting arrest, criminal solicitation to commit a crime and contempt of court. She’s being held on $5 million bail, the Kauai Police Department said, according to reports.
Vallow’s children have been missing since Sept. 23.
She had been under investigation in the disappearances for weeks but left Idaho just as authorities were carrying out a welfare check on the children, according to reports.
In January, she resurfaced in Hawaii with Chad Daybell, whom she married in November.
Kauai police finally caught up with the couple and served Vallow with a court order from Idaho that gave her five days to bring the children in front of a judge by Jan. 31.
The deadline came and went. Vallow never returned to Idaho, and reports say there were no signs her children were ever with her in Hawaii.
Thursday’s arrest was the culmination of months of efforts by federal, state and local agencies working around the clock to find the children and to explain three other suspicious deaths connected to the case.
The investigation heated up after authorities in the family’s hometown of Rexburg, Idaho, filed the protection order seeking the children in late January.
The two children are 17-year-old Tylee Ryan and 7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow. The Rexburg Police Department first announced they were missing on Dec. 20.
Vallow will next have a court date where she can “waive or fight her extradition to Idaho,” where she'll face criminal charges, reports said.
Previously
East Idaho News reported in late January that the couple had been staying at the exclusive Princeville Resort in Kauai for about a month.
Next, Kauai police armed with a warrant pulled over the couple’s car near a beachside resort on Jan. 25, seized their vehicle and served the 46-year-old Vallow with the court order from Idaho before letting them go.
“It's one of the most unusual situations I’ve ever heard of in my career in law enforcement,” Kauai Prosecutor Justin Kollar said at the time, according to CBS affiliate KGMB-TV in Hawaii.
Nate Eaton, a reporter with East Idaho News, also tracked the couple down and confronted Vallow, who refused to answer his questions about where her kids are.
Kay Vallow Woodcock, one of the grandparents of the children, told KSL.com: “(They're) probably sitting on the beach somewhere while we’re sitting here wondering where the kids are.”
Woodcock and her husband, Larry, have offered a $20,000 reward for information that leads to the recovery of the children.
How the case began
The timeline in the case dates to July 2019, before the children went missing.
Lori at that time was living in Phoenix and was married to Charles Vallow.
Reports say Charles Vallow adopted the boy JJ when he was a baby, and the girl was Lori’s daughter from a previous relationship.
According to AP reports, Lori developed a relationship with Daybell while she was married.
Daybell is an author of several religious-themed fiction books about prophecies and the end of the world, The Associated Press reported.
Charles Vallow eventually filed for a protection order against Lori after she allegedly began making threats to kill him.
He confided to family members that Lori was cheating and claiming to be a god, according to The Arizona Republic.
Vallow was in the process of filing for divorce when he was shot to death, allegedly by Lori’s brother Alex Cox during an argument at the couple’s home, according to news reports.
As a new widow, Lori Vallow moved to Rexburg, Idaho, a month later with the children, not far from Yellowstone National Park. Daybell was seen with the family at a townhouse complex in Rexburg, where authorities recently attempted a welfare check on the children, but by the time they arrived, the family was gone, according to reports.
Credit: JOHN ROARK
Credit: JOHN ROARK
Family members who live in Lake Charles, Louisiana, said contact with the children quickly waned and was completely cut off by the time the children were last reported seen in September.
Larry and Kay Woodcock said they were only able to reach JJ a few times after his father’s death. They say voice messages, emails and texts have gone unanswered since August, The Associated Press reported.
Reports said the mother never said a word about the disappearances to family or authorities.
Credit: John Roark
Credit: John Roark
“How do you not know where your child is?” Woodcock said, according to reports by KSL.com. “How do you not have them for four months? What kind of mother does that?”
Husband’s ex-wife also dead
Lori married Chad Daybell two weeks after his previous wife, 49-year-old Tammy Daybell, died of natural causes on Oct. 19, according to reports. Her body has since been exhumed for an autopsy, according to The Associated Press.
Two months later, in December, and with the children still unaccounted for, Lori’s brother Cox also died of unknown causes, according to reports. Cox claimed self-defense in the killing of his sister’s previous husband, and he was never arrested or charged in the case.
A wide-ranging investigation is continuing.
About the Author
