A timeline of the missing Idaho children
Feb 24, 2020, 10:34 AM | Updated: Apr 3, 2023, 6:06 pm
Joshua Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 17 (Rexburg Police Department)
(Rexburg Police Department)
Missing Idaho Kids Timeline
This timeline of events relating to the missing Idaho children will be updated as information becomes available. Last Update September 4, 2020
July 2019
Lori Vallow’s former spouse, Charles Vallow, is found dead after being killed in a confrontation with Lori’s brother.
Lori’s brother, Alex Cox, said he shot Charles in self-defense.
August 2019
Lori Vallow moves herself and family to Idaho.
September 23, 2019
Idaho siblings Joshua Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 17, are last seen in Rexburg.
October 19, 2019
Tammy Daybell, the previous wife of the children’s step-father, is found dead in her home in Fremont County. Police ruled it as natural death at first, but have since ruled it suspicious.
Chad Daybell marries Lori Vallow two weeks later.
November 26, 2019
Police conduct wellness check on Joshua Vallow after family reported not seeing him in months.
Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell told officials Joshua was staying with a family friend in Arizona. However, after conducting an investigation, the police couldn’t locate the boy and ruled him as missing.
Police then find out Joshua is adopted and has special needs.
Police also discover Joshua’s sister Tylee hasn’t been seen since September — they report her as missing.
November 27, 2019
Police return to the home the next day to execute a search warrant for the two children. However, Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell have been found to “abruptly” leave their home.
Rexburg police request FBI assistance as it wasn’t clear if they took the boy with them.
December 12, 2019
Lori Vallow’s brother, Alex Cox dies.
December 20, 2019
Salt Lake City Police Department issue a statement they are assisting Rexburg police in locating the two children. An Idaho man, Chad Daybell — the children’s step-father — and woman, Lori Vallow — the children’s mother — are being sought after by the police.
December 24, 2019
Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell, listed as persons of interest in the case, release a statement saying they love their son and daughter.
They also state looking forward to addressing “allegations once they have moved beyond speculation and rumor,” according to the statement.
January 7, 2020
The children’s grandparents post a $20,000 reward for information that leads to a safe return of the two children.
Kay and Larry Woodcock are the biological grandparents of Joshua Vallow, who was adopted by Lori Vallow. The grandparents state they still believe the children are alive.
Lori and Chad have not been seen since they left the home.
January 27, 2020
Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell are located in Hawaii. However, the children are still not located.
The Kaua’i Police Department announce Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell had been staying on Kaua’i. The couple are served with a legal document ordering Lori Vallow to produce the children.
Police are still investigating the deaths of both of their former spouses.
January 30, 2020
Lori Vallow fails to “physically produce” the two children. Vallow now faces a contempt order.
She is charged with two felony counts of desertion and nonsupport of dependent children, police said. She is also charged with resisting or obstructing officers, criminal solicitation to commit a crime, and contempt of court, police said.
Kay Vallow Woodcock, a biological grandmother speaks to the press and says she was disappointed Lori did not produce the children.
February 20, 2020
Lori Vallow is arrested in Hawaii. She was arrested on a warrant issued in Madison County, Idaho, and held on $5 million bail, Kauai police said.
Police say Lori and husband Chad Daybell have lied about knowing the whereabouts of the two missing Idaho children. Police found the couple had even lied about the existence of the two children, reporting Chad Daybell allegedly telling one person that Lori Vallow had no kids, and Lori Vallow allegedly telling another person that her daughter had died more than a year earlier.
February 21, 2020
Bail is set for Lori Vallow and confirmed at $5 million after a court extradition hearing in Hawaii. Police haven’t confirmed whether they believe the children are still alive.
Police report Vallow will return to court for another extradition hearing March 2.
February 25, 2020
ABC News catches Chad Daybell at a gas station in Hawaii. Daybell says that he is thankful for the support he has seen towards he and his wife. When asked if the children are okay his reply is, “No comment.”
March 4, 2020
Lori Vallow is still in custody in Hawaii. She is not expected to leave Hawaii until 11:30 p.m. Hawaii time.
March 5, 2020
Lori Vallow catches a red-eye flight from Hawaii early Thursday morning, presumably on her way back to Idaho. Vallow landed in LAX around 7:45 a.m. MST, however, there is little information regarding her whereabouts.
Airport goer Kevin Lunt captured a video of Lori Vallow exiting her plane and being escorted to a police vehicle.
The FBI also released a number of photos of both JJ Vallow and Tylee Ryan at Yellowstone National Park on September 8, 2019. They ask anyone who may have photos or video to send them to the Bureau.
PLEASE SHARE: The @FBISaltLakeCity and @RexburgPolice are asking for anyone who visited @YellowstoneNPS on September 8th and who may have captured photos of JJ Vallow or Tylee Ryan to contact them. pic.twitter.com/igP39gsx5X
— KSL NewsRadio (@kslnewsradio) March 5, 2020
March 6, 2020
Lori Vallow makes her first appearance in a Rexburg courtroom where a judge reduced her bail to $1 million.
May 2, 2020
Body camera footage was released by police in Arizona of Lori Vallow’s fourth husband 62-year-old Charles Vallow just days before he was killed by his brother in law Alex Cox. In the video, Vallow says that his wife had “lost her mind” and expressed concern for the safety of their children.
June 6, 2020
The Rexburg Police Department along with the Fremont County Sheriff and the FBI served a second search warrant at the home of Chad Daybell. The search warrant is sealed, but officers say that it is in relation to the disappearance of JJ and Tylee.
Later in the day around 11:30 Chad Daybell was seen being handcuffed and placed in the back of a police car just a mile from his home in Salem.
June 10, 2020
Chad Daybell makes his first appearance in an Idaho courtroom. He is charged with two felony counts of destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence.
During that appearance, the state’s prosecution confirms the remains found on his property were that of children. Later that day JJ Vallow’s biological grandparents Larry and Kay Woodcock along with Tylee Ryan’s brother Colby say the human remains found on Daybell’s property are that of JJ Vallow and Tylee Ryan.
Bail is set at $1 million.
June 19, 2020
A probable cause affidavit was unsealed detailing the final days of Tylee Ryan and JJ Vallow detailing the actions and movements of a number of people in the investigation.
Part of that information is the cell phone location data of Lori Vallow Daybell’s brother Alex Cox that placed him in Chad Daybell’s backyard in the area that both children’s bodies were found.
Also detailed in the affidavit are remarks made by Lori to a close personal friend where she said both children had become ‘zombies’
June 23, 2020
KSL’s Cold podcast team and KSLTV obtain exclusive satellite images of Chad Daybell’s property showing the immediate hours after police believe that Chad Daybell and Alex Cox finish burning and burying the remains of 16-year-old Tylee Ryan on Sept. 9, 2019.
June 30, 2020
Two new felony charges are filed against Lori Vallow Daybell which charge with of conspiracy to commit destruction, alteration, or concealment of evidence.
July 1, 2020
Two new felony charges are also filed against Chad Daybell, conspiracy to commit destruction and alteration or concealment of evidence, the same charges were filed against Lori Daybell the day before.
August 3-4, 2020
Chad Daybell begins two days of preliminary hearings to decide whether his case will be sent to a jury trial. During testimony, new details are revealed about the discovery of JJ Vallow’s body in Daybell’s backyard. Lead investigator, Detective Ray Hermosillo, detailed the events of the search on Daybell’s property on June 9, where the bodies of both JJ Vallow and Tylee Ryan were found.
Also during testimony, a recording of a phone call between the Daybell’s and former friend Melanie Gibb is played where the Daybell’s can be heard saying they didn’t want anyone to know the location of JJ so the police wouldn’t tell his grandmother where he was.
On the second day of the hearing, prosecutors introduced a recorded phone call made by Lori to Chad on the day the bodies of JJ and Tylee were found.
Judge Faren Eddins rules there is sufficient probable cause in the case against Chad Daybell and sends the case to District Court.
August 6, 2020
Lori Vallow Daybell waived her right to a preliminary hearing involving the two felony counts of conspiracy to conceal, alter or destroy evidence in Fremont County.
August 21, 2020
Chad Daybell pleads not guilty on all four felony charges against him.
August 27, 2020
Chad Daybell’s lawyer John Prior files a motion to dismiss all charges against his client citing a “lack of sufficient evidence.”
“The charges are not supported by the evidence and duplicative as allegations against the defendant. Further, the prosecution has yet to present evidence to support when the alleged acts is supposedly to have taken place,” the motion states.
August 31, 2020
Prosecutor Rob Wood files a motion to combine both Chad and Lori’s trials saying the evidence they have is nearly identical, and as such their trials will be nearly identical.
September 9, 2020
Working with Visual Law Group, KSL NewsRadio and KSL TV have obtained an exclusive 3D model of the Daybell crime scene.
September 10, 2020
Lori Vallow Daybell pleaded not guilty to two felony charges relating to the death and disappearance of her two children. A jury trial is scheduled tentatively to begin at 10 a.m. on April 2 with a pretrial conference scheduled for March 22.
October 29, 2020
Idaho courts ruled that the two separate cases against Lori Vallow Daybell and Chad Daybell in the deaths and disappearances of Vallow Daybell’s children will be combined into one trial.
November 2020
The trial for Lori and Chad Daybell — parents of the missing Idaho children who were later found dead — has been postponed to July 7, seven months after its original January date. The couple faces trial on charges alleging they worked together to hide the bodies of their children after their deaths.
The trials were originally scheduled for January, but were postponed after a judge combined the cases in October.
It’s unclear how long the trial will last; the judge scheduled a pretrial conference for the Daybells on Jan. 6, 2021.
January 4, 2021
A jury trial for misdemeanor charges Lori Vallow Daybell is facing is scheduled to take place in mid-August.
January 6, 2021
Lori Vallow Daybell’s attorney, Mark Means, and Chad Daybell’s attorney, John Prior, filed similar motions in Idaho courts last month to disqualify prosecutor Rob Wood from trying their cases. They cite audio recordings they obtained of a conversation Wood had with two material witnesses from Arizona. A motion hearing is scheduled for Jan. 6, 2021
April 29, 2021
An Idaho judge ordered the state crime lab to put DNA evidence testing on hold in the case against Chad and Lori Daybell after the defense filed a motion to ask that half the samples be given to them to independently test.
May 25, 2021
New charges filed against both Chad and Lori including the new charge of first-degree murder of both JJ Vallow and Tylee Ryan. Chad was also charged with the first-degree murder of his last wife Tammy where Lori was charged with conspiracy in that case.
During their separate scheduled court appearances Chad was read the new charges, in Lori’s case though, after a recess set the court back by 15 minutes, the judge ordered her hearing postponed.
May 27, 2021
Lori Vallow found unfit to stand trial after a psychological assessment was ordered. State prosecutors contested the findings and the court issued a stay of her case until a hearing on the findings could be done.
Additionally, the Chandler Police Department in Arizona concluded an investigation into the death of Lori Vallow Daybell’s late husband Charles Vallow and recommended Lori be charged with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office will make the final decision on whether or not she will face another murder charge.
July 1, 2021
Prosecutors in Arizona declined to prosecute Chad Daybell on first-degree murder charges in the death of Lori Daybell’s former husband Charles Vallow.
This timeline of events relating to the missing Idaho children will be updated.
