Cult mom Lori Vallow sent 'out of control' autistic son away to her brother, daughter's skull found in melted mass
SALEM, IDAHO: "Cult mom" Lori Vallow reportedly sent her seven-year-old autistic son to stay with her brother the last time he was seen alive. The mother had reportedly become frustrated with the child for smashing a picture of Jesus and "climbing up" kitchen cabinets.
The woman's children, 17-year-old Tylee Ryan and Joshua ‘JJ’ Vallow, 7, had reportedly disappeared in September last year, however, authorities only realized they were missing two days before Thanksgiving when one of their relatives asked them to conduct a welfare check after they were unable to contact JJ. The children's mother then fled to Hawaii the first time she was questioned by police regarding Tylee and Joshua's whereabouts.
Vallow had reportedly told her friends that her son was a "zombie" and that she had sent him away with her brother Alex Cox last year in September because he was "out of control." That was the last time Joshua was seen alive. His remains were later found buried in a pet cemetery on her husband Chad Daybell's property. The remains of Joshua's sister were found nearby on the same property.
The mother, on the day police, found the children's remains, had called Chad from the prison where she was being held for not revealing her children's whereabouts. Reports state that Vallow had called Chad, who was still out of prison and on the property. The duo spoke over the phone where he told the mother that it was "logical" that authorities wanted to search the property. The latest details of the case emerged on Tuesday, August 4, at a preliminary hearing for Daybell to decide whether his trial should proceed or not. His trial has been ordered to proceed. The "cult mom" is also set to face a hearing next week on the same charges. The pair have not yet been charged for their children's deaths. It is not yet clear how the children died.
During the trial, family friend David Warwick, on Tuesday, August 4, said that Vallow, on September 22, had asked her brother Alex to come and take Joshua. That was the last the child was seen alive. "She said JJ was being a zombie. He was out of control so she had Alex come get him," Warwick said. Cox died in mysterious circumstances in December last year.
The court also heard that Joshua was found wrapped in plastic and duct tape, with his ankles and hands tied in the ground. While his sister's remains were burned.
"It was a mass of dismembered human remains, partially burnt. We did the best we could but it was kind of hard to recognize," the court was told by detectives. "We just couldn't tell what we were dealing with. We ended up excavating all the way around it and at the very bottom of this mass, we find this melted green bucket and then to the bottom, to the side of that green bucket, we eventually find a skull. ...we find some teeth."
Questions are also being asked of local police department officers after the remains of Vallow's missing children were found at her husband's house, which had already been searched by police in January. Police have also come under the scanner over why it took so long for the children's mother and stepfather to be charged in the case.
Vallow and her current husband, Chad Daybell, a former gravedigger, and doomsday fanatic, evaded police shortly after the children were reported missing and refused to answer questions of their whereabouts for months. Vallow was eventually arrested in December 2019 on charges of neglect. There had been no development in the case since then until last month when the Rexburg Police Department in Idaho carried a search warrant on Daybell's Salem property, allowing the officials to bring cadaver dogs there for the first time. They found two bodies in what appeared to be Daybell's backyard.