One of two missing children of an Idaho mother arrested and charged last week in their disappearances was caught on a neighbor’s Ring doorbell camera in September just six days before he vanished, according to reports.
The video footage shows Lori Vallow's son, 7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow, on Sept. 17, playing in the yard with a friend at an apartment complex in rural Rexburg, Idaho, where the family had moved to from Arizona in early September.
Joshua and his sister, 17-year-old Tylee Ryan, haven't been seen since Sept. 23.
Their mother, Lori Vallow, 47, is facing multiple felony child neglect charges in the case and is still being held in Hawaii pending extradition to Idaho.
On Sunday, Idaho Gov. Brad Little said he wants to expedite the extradition, according to reports.
Little said he’s waiting for prosecutors in Madison County, Idaho, where the initial arrest warrant was issued, to send him the required paperwork so he can order Vallow’s immediate extradition, Fox News reported.
"Come to our office. We'll run it through the system, and we'll send it back and it'll go to Hawaii for extradition. I hope there is justice, and I hope the children are found," Little told KMVT.
Vallow had been under investigation in the disappearances for weeks but left Idaho just as authorities were preparing to carry out a welfare check on the children, according to reports.
In January, Vallow resurfaced in Hawaii with her new husband, Chad Daybell, whom she married in early November.
Kauai police 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, and Vallow never returned to Idaho. Reports say there were no signs her children were ever with her in Hawaii.
When they were last seen
The teenage girl was last seen on surveillance video at the entrance of Yellowstone National Park on Sept. 8, according to reports.
Next, Vallow withdrew Joshua from Kennedy Elementary School on Sept. 24, telling school officials she planned to home school the boy.
Vallow reportedly told neighbors she sent her son to Louisiana to spend time with his grandparents, but police found that report to be false as Joshua’s grandmother, Kay Vallow Woodcock, had already reported the boy missing Nov. 25.
The new video footage of the boy was first shared with Idaho news media but has since been handed over to police as authorities try to piece together a timeline of events in the complicated case that includes three other suspicious deaths.
Reports say about a month after the boy was caught on camera, a woman also was filmed showing up to visit Lori Vallow at the Rexburg apartment.
Vallow’s arrest Feb. 20 was the culmination of months of efforts by federal, state and local agencies working around the clock to find the children.
The investigation heated up after Rexburg authorities filed the protection order seeking the children in late January.
The Rexburg Police Department first announced the children were missing Dec. 20.
Vallow 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, according to reports. She’s being held on $5 million bail, the Kauai Police Department said.
She 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
Idaho media outlets reported in late January that the couple had been staying at the exclusive Princeville Resort in Kauai for about a month.
Kauai police, armed with a warrant, pulled over the couple’s car near a beachside resort Jan. 25, seized their vehicle and served 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 Allen 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 with the family at the Rock Creek Hollow subdivision in Rexburg, where authorities in November executed search warrants on three separate apartments, but were unable to find the children.
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 Joshua 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.
“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.
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