#bizarre cases

It All Starts with Two Missing Kids

I’ve been following this rather crazy story for a few days now and I thought I’d share it with you. Just be warned before you read that this is all ongoing, so there’s a lot we don’t know. I’ll do my best to make it less confusing than it really is for you, and to set aside rumors from known facts.

We’ll start in November of 2019, when Kay and Larry Woodcock called police in Rexburg, Idaho, and asked them to do a welfare check on Joshua “JJ” Vallow, whom they hadn’t heard from since late September. JJ is a 7 year old boy with special needs and although he was Kay and Larry’s biological grandson, he had been adopted by Kay’s brother Charles Vallow and his wife Lori. Charles had died in July 2019, so JJ was living with Lori and her new husband, Chad Daybell (more on that later, because it’s one big piece of this puzzle).

When police arrived to Chad (51) and Lori’s (46) house on November 26, JJ wasn’t there. They claimed that he was staying with a family friend in Arizona, but police soon found out that wasn’t true. They went back the next day with a search warrant, only to find that Lori and Chad had abruptly left town with an unknown destination.

If that wasn’t suspicious enough, authorities realized that JJ wasn’t the only kid missing. His older sister Tylee Ryan, who was Lori’s 17 year old daughter, had also vanished and no one had seen or heard from her since September. Neither of the kids had been reported missing by anyone.

JJ and Tylee’s whereabouts remain unknown, and we don’t even know if they’re alive. Rexburg police has openly said they “strongly” believe they are in danger. In a press release from December 30, they said that witnesses claimed Lori and Chad had told them Tylee had died in 2018, which wasn’t true, and that Chad had told someone else that Lori had “no minor children”. Meanwhile, Lori and Chad, wherever they are, have lawyered up. 

While the missing children is undoubtedly the more pressing matter, it’s only the tip of the iceberg in this case. Turns out that both Chad and Lori have quite a shady past, especially in relation to their previous spouses. 

Chad was married to a woman called Tammy (49), who was found dead in her home on October 19, 2019 (so a month after the kids went missing). At the time, her death was considered from natural causes, but now police consider it suspicious and have exhumed her body to perform an autopsy and testing. The results, if they have them, haven’t been released yet. Chad married Lori only two weeks after his wife’s death.

Lori, who’d been married four times before finding her fifth husband in Chad, was also a recent widow, but her husband’s death was way more violent than Tammy’s. Charles Vallow and her had separated in early 2019 and their divorce was getting nasty. On July 11, 2019, Charles was shot to death by Lori’s brother, Alex Cox, in Arizona (where Lori lived before moving to Rexburg). Alex’s story was that Charles had showed up at the house, an argument had ensued and Charles had hit him with a baseball bat, so he’d shot him in self defense. Alex (51) himself died of unknown causes on December 12, 2019, and his death is currently under investigation as well.

So here is where things get a bit muddier, since some people believe that all this is related to an alleged cult. Both Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow were very religious. Chad owns a publishing company called Spring Creek Book where he had self-published many of his books that talk about the end of times and near death experiences. He and Lori used to appear in podcasts from a media company called Preparing A People, which claims to help prepare people on Earth for the second coming of Christ, and it’s connected to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The owners of said company issued a statement in December in which they distanced themselves from the couple.

According to the Woodcocks, Lori was a nice woman until she started getting more involved with this religious group in 2018, where she supposedly met Chad. When Charles Vallow filed the divorce papers, he made some very shocking claims about Lori, saying that she was “obsessive about near death experiences and spiritual visions”, that she claimed to be “eternally married to the prophet Moroni” from the Book of Mormon and that she had lived “numerous lives on numerous planets”. The document from February 2019 says: “(Lori) informed (Charles) that she is a translated being who cannot taste death sent by God to lead the 144,000 into the Millennium. She is receiving spiritual revelations and visions to help her gather and prepare those chosen to live in the New Jerusalem after the Great War as prophesied in the book of Revelations”. Charles also claimed that Lori said she had been assigned by God to “carry out the work of the 144,000 at Christ’s second coming in July 2020″ and that if he got in her way she would kill him, and that had an angel who would help her dispose of his body. And as we know, Charles was dead only 5 months later.

There are reports that Lori left Charles because he was cheating on her during his business trips. One police report seems to believe that Charles was the most suspicious of the two, and you can read about it here. So I guess we need to keep our minds open regarding this part of the story.

To add a little to the weirdness, a man called Brandon Boudreaux was married to Lori’s niece and claims she abruptly asked for divorce after she started spending time with Lori’s religious group. Then, in October 2, 2019, Brandon was shot at by some unknown assailant while he was driving a car registered in Lori’s name. The bullet missed him, but Brandon is convinced that it’s connected to this alleged cult (which, to be fair, hasn’t been officially confirmed by anyone).

Tylee’s dad, Joseph Ryan, who was Lori’s third husband, died in 2018 from a heart attack.

So far no charges have been pressed against Chad and Lori, who remain uncooperative with the investigation and refusing to reveal where her kids are. Their lawer issued a statement saying: “Chad Daybell was a loving husband and has the support of his children in this matter. Lori (Vallow) 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”.

UPDATE Jan 27, 2020

Authorities have located Lori and Chad in Hawaii. The children are not with them and there’s no evidence they were ever in Hawaii either, and the couple has again refused to tell police where they are. They have been given a child protection order, which requires Lori to physically produce Tylee and JJ to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare in Rexburg or to the Rexburg Police within five days, otherwise she might be subject to civil or criminal contempt of court.

UPDATE FEB 11, 2020

The deadline passed, Tylee and JJ’s whereabouts are still unknown. We’ve learned a few things, though:

- In August 2019, about a month after Charles Vallow was murdered and shortly before Lori and her new husband moved from Arizona, where she lived with her kids, to Idaho, she gave away JJ’s service dog, even though he was vital for her son’s treatment. She tried to sell the dog, Bailey, first for 2.500, but ended up telling Bailey’s trainer to take him (x).

- Tylee’s cellphone was found in her mother’s possession in Hawaii. According to several sources, the phone has been used since Tylee was last seen in September, but a text sent to a friend didn’t sound like her (x). Her older brother Colby also got texts from Tylee until October, but would never be able to talk on the phone with him when he tried. Colby also found Tylee’s texting style back then different from usual (x).

- Between October and November 2019, Lori put all her kids’ belongings in a storing unit in Idaho (x).

- When Charles Vallow was murdered by her own brother, Lori told the news to his adult sons from a previous relationship by text, telling them only that their father had died and kept avoiding explaining how exactly he died (x).

So far no arrests have been made, despite Lori’s refusal to comply with a court order. Police are likely working on gathering enough evidence to be able to charge her with something.

Sources:

- Article Two Children are Missing from the Washington Post.

- A Timeline and Key Players from the Case (note that Charles Vallow’s date of death is wrong here)

- Charles allegations against Lori.

- Police comment on Tammy Daybell’s death and Lori’s older son begs her to come home.

Joshua Rose (pictured left) was only 21 years old when he tragically died on August 25th, 2016. He spent that day at a friend’s home in Scranton, Pennsylvania with 19 year-old Preston Layfield, (pictured top right) and his ex-girlfriend, 20 year-old Amanda Wayda. (pictured center right). The group of friends were all using heroin while inside the home. At some point, Joshua lost consciousness and Preston and Amanda feared he had overdosed. Amanda then called 22 year-old Tyler Mirabelli (pictured bottom right) and asked him to drive them to the hospital. Tyler agreed, and he helped Preston and Amanda place Joshua inside his car.

Unfortunately, things did not go as planned. The group drove straight past a hospital and continued to drive north down interstate I-81. At some point during the drive, the trio placed a plastic bag over Joshua’s head while Preston strangled him with a jumper cable. Once they were sure that Joshua had died, they put a hat and a pair of sunglasses on him to make it appear that he was still alive. They then stopped to buy gas at a nearby gas station before dumping Joshua’s body over an embankment in Susquehanna county. To this day, it is still unclear why the group did not take Joshua to the hospital as originally planned.

13 year-old Jamie Hernandez-Zubia ran away from her foster home in Wathena, Kansas on June 9th, 2012. Prior to her disappearance, Jamie had recently been prosecuted in a juvenile court for drug possession. She was due in court for her sentencing shortly after her disappearance; she never showed up and has not been seen by her foster family since then. There was unfortunately very little media coverage on Jamie’s disappearance, likely due to her runaway status.

Three years later, during the early morning hours May 30th, 2015, a Kansas City resident called the police to report a shootout on the 2500 block of Ridge Avenue. According to the witness, two vehicles fired shots at each other, and a female passenger in one of the vehicles was killed as a result. The female passenger’s body was dumped on the side of the road and the vehicles drove off before the police arrived. Two days later, on June 1st, 2015, authorities announced that the slain female was identified as Jamie.

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