Lori Vallow Returning To Idaho In Tangled Missing Kids Case
PHOENIX, AZ — Lori Vallow, the former Phoenix resident whose two children have been missing for five months, waived extradition to Idaho in a court hearing in Hawaii Wednesday and will be brought back to the Gem State to face multiple felony charges.
The whereabouts of Vallow’s children, 7-year-old Joshua Vallow and 17-year-old Tylee Ryan, remain unknown, though an Arizona man claimed in court documents filed last week that his ex-wife, Vallow’s niece, may know where the children are. They were last seen in Rexburg, Idaho, in mid-September.
During Wednesday’s hearing in Lihue, Hawaii, Vallow’s attorney asked Judge Kathleen Watanabe to reduce her $5 million bond, arguing it is excessive in light of the crimes she is accused of committing — two felony counts of desertion and nonsupport of dependent children.
“Her husband lives here, and she has established residency here in the past,” Craig De Costa, her attorney, said during the hearing, according to the East Idaho News. “She’s more than willing to post bail if reduced to a reasonable amount and actually pay for herself to go back to Idaho and face those charges.”
Kaua’i County Prosecuting Attorney Justin Kollar said Vallow, 46, has a history of defying court orders, including child custody cases in 2009 and 2011. More recently, Vallow ignored an Idaho court order to “produce” her children by Jan. 30, authorities have said.
Kollar said Vallow, also known as Lori Daybell, is “certainly a flight risk … and is in open defiance of court orders.” The judge agreed and did not reduce the bond after prosecutors noted that her new husband, Chad Daybell, had $150,000 in a First Hawaiian Bank account. He was not arrested and does not face charges.
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In Idaho, Vallow will face more-serious charges of desertion and nonsupport of children, resisting and/or obstructing an officer, solicitation and contempt in the tangled missing persons case involving rumors of a religious cult, doomsday preparations, several suspicious deaths and an abandoned storage unit filled with the children’s belongings.
Also Wednesday, authorities in Idaho filed new subpoenas seeking records from one of the children’s and for property records in Hawaii, where Vallow and her doomsday prepper husband are currently living. Vallow was arrested in Kaua’i on Feb. 20.
In Arizona, Brandon Boudreaux of Gilbert claimed in court records filed in Maricopa County Superior Court that his ex-wife, Melani Boudreaux, has information that could help investigators find Vallow’s children, the Arizona Republic reported.
Melani Boudreaux Pawlowski, Vallow’s niece, has denied that, her attorneys said in a statement Wednesday
“Mrs. Pawlowski has cooperated with law enforcement, including meeting for hours with the FBI on three separate days,” attorney Robert P. Jarvis said in the statement. “As she told the FBI, Melani does not know the whereabouts of the missing children of her aunt, Lori Vallow.”
Boudreaux had claimed in Feb. 19 court documents filed by his attorney that his former wife was “being investigated for numerous felonious acts across numerous jurisdictions” and that she was “involved in a cult where numerous members, adults and children alike have been … killed off like flies.”
His ex-wife and her new husband, Ian Robert Pawlowski, were married Nov. 30 in Las Vegas, where they listed their address on the marriage license as Rexburg, where Vallow’s children were last seen.
Boudreaux, who was shot at in an Oct. 2 drive-by shooting in Gilbert while driving home from a gym, claimed in the court documents that his ex-wife conspired with her uncle Alex Cox — Lori Vallow’s brother — to kill him and “cash in” on an insurance policy “to help support the cult that she is believed to be part of,” according to court documents.
She had “a Million Dollars of reasons” to have him killed, Boudreaux claimed in the court documents.
Melani Boudreaux Pawlowski’s attorney said in the statement that her ex-husband was “lying in his court documents” in an effort to get full custody of their children.
Boudreaux claimed Melani spent time with Lori Vallow and the doomsday group and left Arizona “almost immediately after” the attempt on his life. Her attorneys said in a Jan. 27 petition that she “had no reason to instigate an incident of this nature” against Boudreaux, according to the Arizona Republic report, and that he had “many questionable business dealings in Arizona” and his business associates “could be trying to murder him.”
Jarvis said in the statement that his client, a lifetime member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, “has never been associated with a cult” and that “her beliefs are consistent with the Church. Melani holds close to her belief in a loving God.”
2 Of Vallow’s Husbands Die In 2 Years
Alex Cox shot Charles Vallow, Lori Vallow’s husband at the time, in their Phoenix home in July. Cox, who claimed at the time that he acted in self-defense, died of unknown causes in December. His death remains under investigation as police in Gilbert await results of toxicology tests.
Charles Vallow had filed for divorce five months before he was killed. He had previously gotten a protection order, according to court documents painting a picture of a woman who believed she was a “translated being” and “a god assigned to carry out the work of the 144,000 at Christ’s second coming in July 2020.”
Lori Vallow had already met Chad Daybell by then. Both had been involved in a group that promotes preparedness for biblical armageddon, police have said. They appeared together in a Dec. 5, 2018, podcast, “Time to Warrior Up,” according to a timeline put together by the East Idaho News. In multiple books, blog posts and podcasts about the apocalypse, Daybell claims to have previously died and had near-death experiences that allowed him to see into the future.
Vallow and the now-missing children moved to eastern Idaho weeks after Charles Vallow’s death. In November, she married doomsday prepper Chad Daybell, the author of several apocalyptic novels loosely based on Mormon religious theology.
Investigators say the two got married two weeks after the Oct. 19 death of Tammy Daybell, Chad’s wife. Investigators initially thought she had died of natural causes but now regard her death as suspicious — in part because, 10 days earlier, she made a 911 call reporting a masked assailant had shot her with a paintball at her Salem, Idaho, home.
Vallow has been married at least five times, and Charles Vallow was the second of her husbands to die in the past two years, according to the East Idaho News. Joseph Ryan, Tylee’s father, was found dead April 5, 2018, in their Gilbert home. The newspaper, citing a medical examiner’s report, said the cause of Ryan’s death was a heart attack. His body was cremated, and little else is known about his death.
About 10 years before his death, Cox used a stun gun on Ryan and threatened to kill him during a supervised visitation with Tylee in Austin, Texas, the Arizona Republic reported, citing court documents. Cox was later convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and was sentenced to three months in jail.
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