An Idaho judge on Friday refused to lower bail for Lori Vallow, the 46-year-old mother jailed since February in the disappearance of her two children who have not been seen since September.
The ruling by Judge Michelle Mallard at the Madison County Courthouse in Rexburg, Idaho, means Vallow, charged with several felony counts of child abandonment, will remain jailed on a $1 million bail she can’t afford to pay and that area bondsmen reportedly won’t touch.
The hearing lasted more than two hours, according to a report by KTVB News 7 in Boise. Vallow's attorneys were asking for the bail to be reduced to between $100,000 and $250,000, according to reports.
Vallow was seated in an empty courtroom alongside her lawyer, wearing orange and white-striped jail scrubs and a protective face mask.
‘Dateline NBC’ to air special
Vallow’s eldest son Colby Ryan, meanwhile, will talk about the case in a two-hour TV special that airs Friday night on NBC’s “Dateline.”
“Like, how do you not produce the kids?” he said, according to the network. “That’s the whole reason you’re in jail in the first place right now.”
There was no indication of Vallow’s current assets or her ability to pay even a reduced bail after court records emerged this week showing she was in deep financial trouble in 2004 after divorcing her third husband in Texas.
In February, prosecutors noted that Vallow’s fifth and current husband, Chad Daybell, had $152,000 in a First Hawaiian Bank account.
Under a cloud of suspicion, Vallow vanished from Idaho in November just as authorities were preparing to carry out a welfare check on the kids. She resurfaced a month later in Hawaii, where she eloped with Daybell.
There were no signs the children were ever with her.
Cult allegations
The ongoing saga has many other twists, including several suspicious deaths and family accusations that Daybell and Vallow are members of a Doomsday cult.
Court documents filed in Arizona revealed that Vallow once believed her children had become possessed and turned into zombies, according to a report by NBC News, citing claims by a former family member.
Arrest and extradition
Vallow was arrested Feb. 20 in Kauai after ignoring an earlier court order to bring the children in front of a judge. There, she faced a $5 million bond.
In early March, she was extradited to Idaho to answer to the felony charges, and the bond was lowered to $1 million.
Vallow last appeared in court March 6, and her case has been delayed several times as the court limits its docket due to the coronavirus pandemic.
She maintains her innocence, although she has not cooperated with the investigation nor provided authorities any clues to the whereabouts of 7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow and 17-year-old Tylee Ryan.
Vallow’s arrest was the culmination of months of efforts by federal, state and local agencies working around the clock to find the children and explain the suspicious trail of deaths.
The death of Tammy Daybell
Vallow married Daybell only two weeks after his previous wife of 30 years died Oct. 19, police said.
Tammy Daybell’s body was exhumed from the Springville Evergreen Cemetery in Utah in December, and officials are still awaiting the results of toxicology tests, according to reports.
Neither Daybell, 51, nor Vallow, 46, has been formally charged in her death, although prosecutors are considering possible conspiracy, attempted murder and murder counts, according to East Idaho News.
Raising even more suspicions, Amazon shopping records unearthed in March show a wedding ring was purchased a little more than two weeks before Tammy died, and that Chad Daybell also shopped online for wedding dresses the day after her passing.
In December, two months after Tammy Daybell’s death, Lori’s brother Alex Cox also died of unknown causes, according to reports. Cox, who appeared with Vallow and the children in Sept. 8 family photos at Yellowstone National Park, claimed self-defense in the July 2019 shooting death of Lori’s fourth husband, Charles Vallow, who was Joshua’s adoptive father.
Both Tylee and Joshua were at home when Charles Vallow was shot to death. Reports said Lori Vallow threw a pool party at the house on the same night .
Cox was never arrested or charged in Charles Vallow’s death, and Arizona authorities are continuing to investigate.
Another twist
In another twist, Cox is also suspected of carrying out a drive-by shooting in Gilbert, Arizona, on Oct. 2, 2018. The bullet narrowly missed Brandon Boudreaux, who was once married to Vallow’s niece, Melani Pawlowski.
Boudreaux took note of the Jeep driven by his would-be killer, and police later found the vehicle was registered to Charles Vallow.
Boudreaux and Pawlowski are involved in their own custody battle, and Boudreaux accused his ex-wife of knowing where Vallow’s children are, but Pawlowski's attorneys have denied that claim.
Her new husband, Ian Pawlowski, told the FBI about the Oct. 2 shooting that missed Boudreaux by inches as he was returning home from the gym.
“What I shared with the police were the ideas that Chad, Lori and Alex [Cox] may have planned shooting at Brandon and that Tylee and JJ may be in serious danger if Melani’s fears have any validity,” Ian allegedly wrote, according to East Idaho News.
A private investigator hired by Boudreaux also said he believed Cox was the shooter, East Idaho News reported.
When the kids were last seen
In early March police said they were waiting for the winter snow to melt at Yellowstone, not far from the family’s last known residence, to begin searching its 3,500 square mile grounds for any signs of the children. The day the family was known to be there was the last time Tylee was ever seen.
Joshua was last seen on a neighbor’s doorbell camera playing in the yard with a friend outside the family's apartment in Rexburg, Idaho, on Sept. 17. A week later, on Sept. 24, Vallow withdrew Joshua from his elementary school and he was never seen again.
Lori Vallow reportedly told neighbors she sent her son to Lake Charles, Louisiana, to spend time with his grandparents, but they were the ones who reported him missing in late November, which is when law enforcement first became aware of the case.
Joshua’s grandparents, Larry and Kay Woodcock, said contact with the children quickly waned and was completely cut off by the time the children were last reported seen in September. They were only able to reach Joshua a few times after his father’s death. They say voice messages, emails and texts went unanswered after August 2019.
Reports said the mother never said a word about the disappearances to family or authorities.
“How do you not know where your child is?” Woodcock said at the time in interview with news outlets in Idaho. “How do you not have them for four months? What kind of mother does that?”
Newest revelations
Yet another mysterious death has surfaced from Lori Vallow's past -- in 1998, her older sister, Stacey Lynn Cox Cope, died at age 31 from unknown causes, according to People magazine, citing an exclusive report this week by "Court TV Live."
Fourth marriage falls apart
Chad Daybell, an author of several books about near-death experiences and the apocalypse, reportedly developed a relationship with Vallow while she was still married to her fourth husband.
Before his death, Charles Vallow filed for a protection order against Lori after she allegedly began making threats to kill him. He also discovered that she had tried to change the passwords to his accounts. After this, reports say Vallow had Lori’s name removed from his $1 million life insurance policy, which ultimately went to his sister.
Vallow also confided to family members that Lori was cheating and claiming to be a god, according to The Arizona Republic, and was in the process of filing for divorce when he was killed, according to news reports.
Chad Daybell is not facing any charges in the case and maintains that he and Vallow have done nothing wrong.
Lori Vallow’s former life
Colby Ryan is Vallow’s son from her second marriage. Joseph Ryan was his stepfather, and Tylee’s biological father. Tylee was 2 at the time, and Colby was 9 when the couple divorced in 2004.
In those days, Lori Ryan was in her early 30s and worked as a hairstylist. She competed in the “Mrs. Texas” beauty pageant shortly after winning $17,500 on the game show “Wheel of Fortune,” according to news reports.
The family unraveled after Colby revealed to his mother that Joseph Ryan was physically and sexually abusing him.
Lori left Joseph the following year and filed for bankruptcy. At the time, she was being evicted from the 4,500-square-foot mansion worth $710,000 that she once owned with her husband.
The filing showed she couldn’t afford to pay her monthly bills and owed the IRS about $80,000 in back taxes, although she reported making only $45,000 between 2003 and 2005 combined.
Attack on ex-husband
Three years after the divorce, an arrest warrant was issued for Alex Cox after he threatened to kill Joseph Ryan, reports said.
According to court records, Lori Ryan met Joseph in a Travis County, Texas, parking lot in 2007 to pick up Tylee, who was now 5. After the exchange, Alex Cox appeared and confronted Joseph Ryan about the alleged abuse of his nephew, Colby.
Reports say Cox pulled a stun gun and attacked the man, but somehow Joseph Ryan managed to escape and flee the scene.
Police eventually caught up with Cox about the incident, and he pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and served about three months in jail.
Court papers from 2011 next revealed that Lori and Joseph Ryan were locked in a contentious custody battle over their daughter, Tylee.
Joseph, who was paying $1,500 a month in child support, claimed Lori would not let him see Tylee after she moved to an upscale apartment in Austin, reports said.
Joseph Ryan died from an apparent heart attack in 2018.
‘Mom would die for the kids’
Prior to now, Colby expressed deep frustration about his missing siblings in interviews with several Idaho media outlets.
“I feel ignored,” he said in a Jan. 31 report by KTVB. “Angry. I feel like I’m so confused, and I’m still trying to just go on every single day.”
Colby said he refuses to believe that his mother ever would do anything to harm his younger siblings.
“I feel like my mom would die for the kids,” he told Fox 10 Phoenix in a February interview. “So to see this and hear it, and also be questioning why they’re not being found, that’s where all this comes into a battle between what you think and what you feel.”
Colby claims that his mother lied to him, saying that Charles Vallow died of a heart attack, before later revealing that he was shot twice in the chest and killed.
“Why would you not tell me what was going on?” Ryan said in the interview with Dateline NBC. “This is worse. This is a million times worse than what you said.”
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