Two sets of human remains found Tuesday at the home of an Idaho stepfather are believed to be children, according to multiple news reports, citing statements from family and Madison County Prosecutor Rob Wood.
Although officials have not positively identified the dead, relatives had already confirmed to Fox10 News in Phoenix that the bodies found were those of 7-year-old Joshua "JJ" Vallow, and his sister, 17-year-old Tylee Ryan, who both disappeared in September.
Kay Vallow Woodcock, JJ’s grandmother, spoke to Fox 10’s Justin Lum.
The extended families of both children released a statement on the news station’s Twitter account, which provided some details ahead of an official news conference by several law enforcement agencies scheduled for later in the day.
“The Woodcocks and The Ryans are confirming that the human remains found by Law enforcement on Chad Daybell’s property are indeed our beloved JJ and Tylee. We are filled with unfathomable sadness that these two bright stars were stolen from us, and only hope that they died without pain or suffering.”
Chad Daybell, meanwhile, has been charged with destroying evidence in the case.
He made his first court appearance Wednesday, and bond was set at $1 million, according to Arizona reporter Kim Powell.
The mother of the children, Lori Vallow, was arrested in Hawaii in February on felony abandonment charges and has refused to cooperate with investigators. She was extradited back to Rexburg, Idaho, in March, where she remains jailed on a $1 million bond.
Daybell is being held at the Fremont County Jail on two felony counts of destruction and concealment of evidence, according to East Idaho News, citing court records.
"The first felony count in the criminal complaint alleges Daybell hid, altered, or destroyed human remains on his property between Sept. 8, 2019, and June 9, 2020," East Idaho News reported. "The second count says Daybell hid, altered, or destroyed human remains on his property between Sept. 22, 2019, and June 9, 2020."
Daybell attorney Mark Means did not immediately comment.
Scene where remains found
Rexburg Police Department spokesman Sgt. Gary Hagen confirmed the grisly discovery. The identities of the victims were being withheld pending the results of the autopsies.
Authorities were back at the Salem, Idaho, property Wednesday searching for additional evidence.
Several backhoes were seen entering the property around the time of Daybell’s arrest.
Credit: John Roark
Credit: John Roark
Aerial photos at the rural home show investigators conducting a grid search of the property.
Detectives can be seen examining a circular fire pit.
Nearby, mounds of dirt were excavated with a little more than a dozen 5-gallon buckets. Blue tarps and tents peppered the landscape around a large barn-like structure.
Parked on the street were dozens of crime scene investigative vehicles.
‘The kids are safe’
Daybell is the author of several apocalyptic novels based loosely on principles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Both he and Vallow were involved in a group that believed the end of the world was near.
»RELATED: Former best friend reveals how Vallow, Daybell met
In early March, Daybell told news media in Hawaii that “the kids are safe.”
Before now he had never been charged in the case, although police previously raided his house Jan. 3 and collected 43 items of evidence, East Idaho News reported.
On Tuesday, detectives who apprehended Daybell were only willing to say charges were pending against the man, and that he was detained for questioning, East Idaho News reported.
Photos of the arrest showed Daybell being led away in handcuffs on the side of a road, where his silver SUV was pulled over about 11:30 a.m. Tuesday.
He was about a mile south of his Rexburg home, which is located in the 4000 block of 1900 East, according to reports.
Earlier, FBI agents and Rexburg police arrived at Daybell’s front door at 7 a.m. armed with a federal search warrant. Reports did not reveal if Daybell was home at the time.
The bureau’s Evidence Response Team was on the scene along with law enforcement officials from Madison County, according to reports.
Previous wife dead
Daybell had been under investigation in the death of his previous wife, Tammy, who went to bed Oct. 19 and never woke up. Two weeks later, Daybell and Vallow eloped to Hawaii, where they had a beach wedding.
Back in Idaho, authorities carrying out a welfare check on the children at the Vallow home arrived to find no one there.
Daybell and Vallow were 3,000 miles away at the time, enjoying a monthslong honeymoon at an exclusive resort before authorities finally tracked them down to Kauai.
There were no signs the children were ever with them.
The ongoing saga has many other twists, including several suspicious deaths and family accusations that Daybell and Vallow are members of a Doomsday cult.
Vallow maintains her innocence and has pleaded not guilty to the charges against her.
Youngest child’s grandparents
JJ Vallow’s grandparents, Kay Woodcock and her husband, Larry, live in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and have been pleading for the children’s safe return.
Early in the case they offered a $20,000 reward.
They said contact with the children quickly waned and was completely cut off by the time the children were last reported seen in September.
The Woodcocks said they were only able to reach JJ a few times after his father’s death nearly a year ago. By August 2019, they said voicemails, emails and texts went cold.
Lori Vallow never mentioned the disappearances to family or authorities.
“How do you not know where your child is?” Kay Woodcock said earlier this year, according to reports by KSL.com. “How do you not have them for four months? What kind of mother does that?”
Before leaving for Hawaii, Vallow reportedly told neighbors she sent JJ to spend time with his grandparents, which turned out to be untrue, according to investigators.
Tylee appeared in photos taken Sept. 8 that show Lori Vallow along with both children at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.
It was the last day the teenager was ever seen.
In one of the photos, released by the FBI, Vallow appears with Joshua, wearing a dark hooded jacket while smiling happily for the camera.
Another photo shows Tylee embracing Joshua, with their uncle, Alex Cox, in the background. At one point in the investigation, authorities considered searching the vast grounds of Yellowstone but were forced to wait months for the winter snow to melt.
The boy was last seen on a neighbor’s doorbell camera playing in the yard with a friend outside the family’s apartment in Rexburg on Sept. 17. A week later, on Sept. 24, Vallow withdrew JJ from his elementary school and he was never seen again.
Under investigation
Daybell and Lori Vallow are also under investigation by the Idaho Attorney General’s Office in connection to the death of Tammy Daybell, with whom Chad shares five children.
Her body was exhumed from the Springville Evergreen Cemetery in Utah in December, and officials were awaiting the results of toxicology tests.
Neither Chad Daybell, 51, nor Vallow, 46, has been formally charged in that case, although prosecutors are considering possible conspiracy, attempted murder and murder counts, according to East Idaho News.
Raising 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.
More suspicions
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.
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, but Arizona authorities are continuing to investigate.
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