Authorities investigating the disappearance of two Idaho children whose mother was arrested last week in Hawaii have turned their attention to Yellowstone National Park, not far from the family’s last known residence, according to reports.
Officials say one of the two missing children, 17-year-old Tylee Ryan, 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 court documents filed last week.
The teenager was at the park that day with her mother, Lori Vallow, her brother Joshua “JJ” Vallow, 7, and an uncle, Alex Vallow, reports said.
Sources close to the investigation told CBS News that detectives are just waiting for the snow to melt to begin searching the park grounds that cover nearly 3,500 square miles.
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.
Vallow, meanwhile, is still being held in Hawaii on 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.
Her extradition to Idaho is pending, and Idaho Gov. Brad Little said Sunday he is awaiting paperwork so he can expedite the order for her return.
The 46-year-old mother filed a motion earlier this week to lower her $5 million bail, and a hearing on the matter is scheduled for later Wednesday, according to reports.
Credit: The Associated Press
Credit: The Associated Press
Bail for the same felonies in Hawaii usually range from $2,000 to $20,000, Vallow's attorney, Craig De Costa, said in a court motion seeking a reduction in bail, according to The Associated Press. She isn't a flight risk and had offered to turn herself in to authorities before her arrest Thursday, the motion said.
Prosecutors, however, argued that Vallow is a flight risk, the AP reported. “Given the extensive media attention, she is clearly aware that the authorities have prioritized her case,” prosecutors said, according to the AP. “She also has the means to move across an ocean.”
Prosecutors noted that Vallow's husband, Chad Daybell, whom she married in early November, had $152,000 in a First Hawaiian Bank account.
Vallow had been under investigation since the boy's grandparents reported him missing on Nov. 25, but she vanished from Idaho herself 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.
In January she resurfaced in Kauai, where she was staying with Daybell. She had been there for about a month when police served her with a court order from Idaho that gave her five days to bring the children in front of a judge by Jan. 31.
After failing to return to Idaho, Vallow was arrested Feb. 20.
Reports say there were no signs her children were ever with her in Hawaii.
Previously
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 to explain three other suspicious deaths connected to the case.
The Rexburg Police Department first announced the children were missing Dec. 20.
The investigation heated up after Rexburg authorities filed the protection order seeking the children in late January.
That was about the same time that Idaho media outlets reported that the couple had been staying at the exclusive Princeville Resort in Kauai for about a month.
The Kauai Police Department, 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 authored several apocalyptic novels based loosely on theology of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Both he and Vallow were involved in a group that promotes preparing for the biblical end times, 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 assigned to carry out the work of the 144,000 at Christ's second coming in July 2020,” according to news reports.
Vallow was in the process of filing for divorce when he was shot to death, allegedly by Lori’s brother Alex Cox during an argument at the couple’s home, according to news reports.
As a new widow, Lori Vallow moved to Rexburg, Idaho, about 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.
Joshua’s grandparents 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?”
Chad Daybell'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.
About the Author
