The mother of two missing children who was being held in Hawaii in their disappearance is being flown back to Idaho to face felony charges of desertion and child abandonment, according to reports.
»NEW DETAILS: Husband in missing Idaho children case says ‘kids are safe’
Lori Vallow, 46, is scheduled to appear Friday before a judge in her hometown of Rexburg.
Video from KSL 5 TV shows Vallow being escorted off a flight Thursday morning at Los Angeles International Airport.
Her children, 17-year-old Tylee Ryan and 7-year-old Joshua "JJ" Vallow, haven't been seen since September last year.
The Daily Beast reported that a team from Idaho was already in Kauai, waiting to transport Vallow back to her home state.
She had been jailed in Hawaii on $5 million bond since Feb. 20.
Prior to her arrest, reports say she had been living on the island with her husband, 51-year-old Chad Daybell, since the couple married in a beach ceremony in early November.
There were no signs her children were ever with her, reports said.
Last week, a judge refused to lower Vallow's bail after prosecutors argued she was a flight risk. At a status hearing on Wednesday, Vallow's defense attorney Craig De Costa invoked Vallow's Fifth Amendment rights against self incrimination, and warned that Vallow should not be questioned without an attorney present during the trip, according to USA Today.
Vallow had been under investigation in the case since the boy's grandparents reported him missing Nov. 25, but Vallow lied to authorities and vanished from Idaho just as authorities were preparing to carry out a welfare check, according to reports.
Before she left Rexburg, Vallow reportedly told neighbors she sent her son to Lake Charles, Louisiana, to spend time with his grandparents, which turned out to be untrue, according to investigators.
Police announced the children missing in December.
After she resurfaced in Hawaii, police 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, a deadline she missed.
Authorities in the family’s hometown of Rexburg said they have turned their attention to Yellowstone National Park, not far from the family’s last known residence, and are just waiting for the snow to melt to be able to search the grounds that cover nearly 3,500 square miles, reports said.
»NEW DETAILS: Search for missing Idaho kids shifts to Yellowstone National Park
Officials say one of the two missing children, Tylee, was last seen Sept. 8 at the entrance of the park, where a photograph was taken and later found on her mother’s iCloud account, according to news reports, citing recently filed court documents.
The teenager was at the park that day with her mother, her brother and an uncle, Alex Cox, according to reports.
Joshua 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 Joshua from his elementary school and he was never seen again.
USA Today reports that Joshua's school and two property owners in Hawaii were recently subpoenaed to appear in an Idaho court on March 9 and produce documents related to the case.
Police in Rexburg said Vallow never reported the children missing and never cooperated with the investigation.
Vallow’s Hawaii lawyer claimed she did not produce the children because she did not want them to go into foster care, according to The Daily Beast.
Her arrest on Feb. 20 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.
Vallow married Daybell only two weeks after his previous wife of 30 years died in October, police said. Tammy Daybell's body has since been exhumed for an autopsy, reports said.
Two months later, in December, with the children still unaccounted for, Lori’s brother Alex Cox also died of unknown causes, according to reports. Cox claimed self-defense in the July 2019 killing of Lori’s previous husband, Charles Vallow, and he was never arrested or charged.
Daybell, an author of several apocalyptic novels about a biblical doomsday, is not facing any charges in the case. He maintains that he and Vallow have done nothing wrong.
Reports say last week he told news media in Hawaii that "the kids are safe,” according to a report in the Huffington Post, citing ABC News.
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