Case of missing children tied to doomsday beliefs, 3 deaths

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By REBECCA BOONE and JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER

HONOLULU (AP) — Family members used to describe Lori Vallow as an attentive mother who had her kids’ best interests at heart.

But that was before she reportedly declared herself a god sent to prepare the world for an imminent apocalypse. Before three untimely deaths of people surrounding her. Before her children went missing.

Seven-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow and his 17-year-old sister, Tylee Ryan, haven’t been seen since September. After fleeing from Idaho to Hawaii during an investigation, Vallow, 46, was arrested Thursday on charges of felony child abandonment — a milestone in a case that spans several states and is filled with bizarre twists.

“If somebody two years ago would have said this is what’s going to happen with Lori, I never would have believed it,” JJ’s grandfather, Larry Woodcock, said last month when he announced a $20,000 reward for information leading to the children. “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.”



An image provided by the Kauai Police Department shows Lori Vallow. Vallow--also known as Lori Daybell, and the mother of two Idaho children missing since September--was arrested Thursday, Feb. 20, 2020, in Hawaii, Kauai police said. Seven-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow and 17-year-old Tylee Ryan haven't been seen since late September, and police in Rexburg, Idaho, have said they “strongly believe that Joshua and Tylee's lives are in danger.” (Kauai Police Department via AP)


Read more: https://apnews.com/b34e0a325e8acee5829965bc9cfe9105

[jberryhill]

1. She's being persecuted for her religious beliefs

[SouthernIrish]

2. Seriously?

She is not the victim. It sounds like they are just stating what she believed in and that may have a part in what happened to the children.

[Sucha NastyWoman]

17. I think they forget the sarcasm icon

This is what cultists would say

[Captain Stern]

29. If somebody needs a sarcasm tag to know something is sarcasm...

....then they don't get sarcasm.

Also, they should be beaten to death.

[dawg day]

4. There's a reason she won't tell where they are

So I hope that comment is sarcasm.

She flew to Hawaii without the children. She won't say where they are. The girl is 17. If she had a chance, she would have contacted her grandparents or the police.

I think there won't be a happy ending. This woman and her boyfriend each had a spouse who died under weird circumstances.

[stopwastingmymoney]

25. I read in another story (nbc news I think) that

Her brother killed her husband in a fight and then died himself a few months later

This whole story is deeply weird

[dawg day]

28. The judge put bail at $5 mil

Obviously not believing her claims that the children were just off somewhere.

The girl is 17... if she were just with a relative or friend, she'd know to call someone. What a sad story. The new husband wrote many apocalyptic books... some weird death-driven cult.

[mwb970]

6. You're joking, right? Hard to tell these days.

[jberryhill]

11. You have a constitutional right to do any insane crazy shit

As long as you call it a religion.

[NickB79]

12. You don't have the right to murder your children

Which is what authorities suspect she did.

[jberryhill]

14. Just like God did with his son

Look at Abraham. It’s right there in the Bible. Being willing to kill your kids is a good old fashioned Christian value.



Or good old Jepthah the Gileadite. Sacrificed his own daughter for the Lord...



As long as it’s for God, killing children is as traditional as banishing menstruating women from town.

[StarryNite]

32. Unless...

Those "children" are still at the stage of being nothing but a mass of unborn cells. It's only after they are born that Gawd says it's okay to kill them in his honor.

[weissmam]

15. I have a question

when does you religious beliefs become -you are crazy?

does you religious beliefs give you permission to harm another person?

[jberryhill]

16. If you call it a religion, then it's not crazy

Nothing crazy to see here....

[LanternWaste]

30. Sentiment seems applicable to politics and economics as well...

It's fun to pretend religion is the only safety valve for the insane behavior of humans... as long as we realize it's simple pretense.

[catbyte]

3. I caught a clip of her extradition/bail hearing on YouTube. Her lawyer was poo-pooing the

charges against her as "a couple of misdemeanors and a felony" in an attempt to get her bail reduced from $5M down to $10K. The judge politely listened to him, then at the end of the hearing she replied, "The bail stands." The look on her face was priceless. What a weird and awful case.

[hatrack]

5. But Muh Revelation!

But Muh Personal Relationship With Gaw-duh!!

But Muh Self-Evident Godhood!!!!

[AllyCat]

7. Another crazy religious nut.

They are a pox on our society.

[Warpy]

20. There is no crazy like god crazy

and the state mental hospital I worked in back in the 60s was full of the god crazy. Once they were stabilized on drugs, they were pretty reasonable and went home (if anyone came to get them). This was in god soaked Dixie. Speaking in tongues and getting messages from god in church was normal. Getting those messages in the supermarket was not.

Those state hospitals were bare bones operations and pretty awful. However, just shutting them down and putting people who were unable to care for themselves on the street was a poor solution.

I hope the kids have run away and will stagger out of the jungle at some point, malnourished but alive. I'm not optimistic, parents who turn into god and start predicting apocalypse usually spare their children by killing them.

[QED]

8. This is upsetting....

The children lived in the community where I work. I was contacted by the police because I knew one of them from my job. They were looking for info on friends, etc. I didn't have much to offer them and at the time I didn't know what it was all about. I'm scared for them and I fear the worst.

[FM123]

26. Yes, this is a very upsetting story.

It breaks my heart when I think of those poor kids...

[Hekate]

33. I'm so sorry you turned out to be only one-degree of separation from this mess, QED...

It has to be terribly painful for you.

[QED]

34. Thank you for your kind words, Hekate.

This has been difficult for all of us here.

[csziggy]

9. Three other people's deaths are bing investigated

The kids' father, her brother, and her new husband's previous wife. From the link in the OP:

The Vallows’ marriage had been crumbling. Charles had filed for divorce, saying in court documents that he feared she would kill him and that she’d developed strange, doomsday-cult-like beliefs, reportedly calling herself “a god assigned to carry out the work of the 144,000 at Christ’s second coming in July 2020.”

Cox told police the shooting was in self-defense, that Charles Vallow had come at him with a baseball bat. Police investigated, but the case didn’t go far before Cox died of unknown causes in his Arizona home in December. Toxicology reports done as part of an autopsy have not yet been released.

Lori Vallow moved to Idaho with the kids. She got an apartment in Rexburg in early September and reportedly continued spending time with an old acquaintance, Chad Daybell.

<SNIP>

Daybell’s longtime wife, Tammy Daybell, died in October. The obituary said the 49-year-old fit school librarian died of natural causes, and the family declined an autopsy before she was buried in Utah. About two weeks later, Chad Daybell and Vallow married on a Hawaii beach.

https://apnews.com/b34e0a325e8acee5829965bc9cfe9105

[Shoonra]

10. Consider hiding the children in New Zealand

I forget the names but about 25 years ago in the DC area there was another vanished child case; a mother hiding her daughter from her ex-husband. Jail didn't make her reveal the girl's whereabouts. Eventually it developed that the grandparents had smuggled the girl to New Zealand, which did not have child custody enforcement treaties.

[bronxiteforever]

13. She is a blood thirsty monster

Sold one child’s therapy dog, moved the children’s items into a storage locker and called herself an”empty nester”.

[SunSeeker]

18. OMG. There is no doubt in my mind those 2 poor kids are dead.

Hope she and Daybill spend the rest of theirlives in jail--and not in Kauai!

[bronxiteforever]

19. I sadly agree with about the children.

And the punishment!

[itcfish]

31. For Sure Something

happened to those children. My God what kind of society produces people like this?

[QED]

21. Link to blog of the kids' aunt

Mom is more guano crazy that the media describes.

https://www.annielytics.com/blog/personal/timeline-events-around-disappearance-of-tylee-ryan-jj-vallow/?fbclid=IwAR0FuAhJF5NXb4XSmokihHAKOo9nkV6U7CfpM6botbjMXX5CfrxMak5Z21c

[Wellstone ruled]

27. Is this a Blood

Atonement thing? Are this folks members of the Allred or Blackmore Families?

[essme]

22. Is she technically single now? I have an insane friend that she might like.

Then kill I suppose. Such is love and devotion amongst the insanely devout.

[LisaL]

24. Nope, she is taken.

Married to a guy whose wife recently died of supposed natural causes.
Wife who had at least $430,000 in life insurance money.

[Karadeniz]

23. I would love to see a metaphysics course taught in h.s. There is a ton of growing information about

Out of body experience, physical effects of thought, testings for the survival of Mind after death, and hundreds of investigations into reincarnation reports. This would be the answer to those who really want to spread religious beliefs. If people knew more of nonphysical reality, perhaps they wouldn't fall for untruth.