Search for ‘cult’ mom Lori Vallow’s missing kids to focus on Yellowstone National Park – where daughter was last seen
INVESTIGATORS are planning to search Yellowstone National Park for the teenage daughter of “cult mom” Lori Vallow, who has not been seen since September. Vallow was arrested in Hawaii last week amid the search for 17-year-old daughter Tylee Ryan and 7-year-old son Joshua, who are both missing. Tylee vanished first after going on a day […]
INVESTIGATORS are planning to search Yellowstone National Park for the teenage daughter of “cult mom” Lori Vallow, who has not been seen since September.
Vallow was arrested in Hawaii last week amid the search for 17-year-old daughter Tylee Ryan and 7-year-old son Joshua, who are both missing.
Tylee vanished first after going on a day trip to Yellowstone in Idaho with her mother, little brother and uncle, according to authorities.
The adopted Joshua, known as “JJ,” later disappeared after he was seen at an elementary school. The family was living in Idaho at the time.
“We have not been able to find any witnesses who have seen JV since September 24, 2019,” wrote Rexburg police Lt. Ron Ball in a probable cause affidavit.
An intensive search will take place at Yellowstone but officials are waiting for the snow to melt, according to CBS News.
The disappearance of the children was just the latest in a series of bizarre developments with Vallow and her family.
Vallow married Chad Daybell, but only after both their spouses died under mysterious circumstances. It is the fifth marriage for Vallow.
Her previous husband Charles Vallow was fatally shot at the couple’s Arizona home by her brother Alex Cox, according to cops. Cox said the shooting was in self-defense.
Daybell’s longtime wife Tammy died in October. It was initially believed she died of natural causes, but the body was later exhumed. Toxicology results are pending.
Cops say Vallow developed beliefs in a doomsday cult, reportedly calling herself “a god assigned to carry out the work of the 144,000 at Christ’s second coming in July 2020.”
Investigators believe both Vallow and Daybell have lied about the whereabouts of the missing children.
“This is a very atypical defendant and very unusual case,” former Idaho Attorney General David Leroy told CBS News.
“The implication of a parent who will not cooperate in disclosing their location … is that something very untoward has happened to these children.”
Vallow was taken into custody after fleeing to Hawaii during the investigation.
She has been hit with multiple charges, including felony counts of desertion and nonsupport of dependent children.
“If somebody two years ago would have said this is what’s going to happen with Lori, I never would have believed it,” said JJ’s grandfather Larry Woodcock.
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“I don’t know what caused this conversion. You don’t go from being mother of the year, mother of a special needs child, to being a person who won’t even tell you where she is at, where he is, where they are at.”
He added that “there’s a timeline change with Lori, and it started a few years ago.”
Vallow faces a hearing on March on extradition to Idaho.
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