Lori Vallow Daybell faces additional charges in connection to the death of her children
Court documents released Tuesday detail how police say Lori Vallow Daybell conspired to conceal evidence in the deaths of her children. They also describe the horrific manner in which their bodies were found in Chad Daybell’s backyard.
Lori was charged late Monday with two felony counts of conspiracy to commit destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence. A 16-page affidavit of probable cause contains information by detectives that led them to file charges. Police say she conspired with Chad, her husband, who is facing two felony counts of concealment or destruction of evidence.
On June 9, investigators found Lori’s children, Joshua “JJ” Vallow and Tylee Ryan, had been buried on Chad’s property.
In the documents, Rexburg Police detective Lt. Ron Ball notes that law enforcement originally thought Tylee was 17 when she disappeared in September. She was last seen at Yellowstone National Park on Sept. 8, 2019 – two weeks before her birthday on Sept. 24.
“Law enforcement has stated that Tylee was 17 at the time she went missing because we were not aware she was missing until several months after her 17th birthday,” Ball wrote in the affidavit. “We now have reason to believe she was killed before her 17th birthday.”
Police note that based on cellphone records and GPS data, Lori’s brother Alex Cox likely played a role in disposing of Tylee’s body in Chad Daybell’s backyard on Sept. 9. (Cox has since died of what a medical examiner says was natural causes.) Her remains, along with JJ’s, were found as police executed a search warrant. Ball witnessed autopsies performed on each child.
It was not possible to identify (Tylee’s) remains by simply looking at them as they were too damaged by fire and dismemberment and no longer had any recognizable features,” Ball wrote. “An orthodontist … was able to identify these remains as belonging to Tylee Ryan by matching an irregular jawline with an X-ray of Tylee when she was alive.”
Police were able to obtain “sufficient soft tissue” that was not burned to perform DNA tests on Tylee’s remains. Those tests are being processed.
Ball wrote that JJ’s remains were found wrapped in plastic, and he recognized the child when his body was uncovered.
“The body was well preserved. While I had never met JJ during his life, I was familiar with his face due to seeing many pictures and videos of him,” Ball said. “I was further familiar with his haircut in the pictures I had seen of him in Yellowstone. … JJ was further identified by Brandon Boudreaux (the ex-husband of Lori’s niece, Melani Pawlowski), who was shown an autopsy photograph of the body and face.”
This story was originally published June 30, 2020 at 11:00 AM.