Police release all evidence of Charles Vallow’s death

CHANDLER, Ariz. — Police investigating the murder of Charles Vallow, Lori Vallow-Daybell’s previous husband, release a massive amount of evidence about the shooting that killed him.  It includes hours of interviews and more than 1,000 pages of police documents, including an interview with Vallow-Daybell’s daughter, Tylee Ryan.

Police records show Charles Vallow and his wife, Lori, were having significant trouble in their marriage before he arrived in Maricopa County, Arizona.  Newly released text messages show Vallow was livid with his wife after finding out she had an affair.  He also accused her of ruining people’s lives and poisoning people against each other. 

One message read…

“You will be stopped. That’s all I’ll say and you won’t see it coming. You are in need of some serious help. I do have the priesthood but you’re the one having an affair !!!!! Your out of your mind. Think about all the things you truly believe about yourself. I’m the only one brave enough and loves you enough to call you on this BS. Which is all it is. You’ve been horribly deceived. You ask me if it ever hurt anyone and the answer is hell yes. Just look around you. Your destroying every family you touch.”

On June 30, 2019, Charles Vallow sent his wife another message that read, “Be sure to love over your shoulders today.  This may be the day.  It’s coming.  That much I promise you.”

On July 11, 2019, Vallow went to his wife’s rental home in Chandler, Arizona.  Tylee Ryan told investigators she woke up to the sound of her stepfather screaming at Lori Vallow-Daybell.

She said, “I told him to take a few steps back.  I was like, ‘You’re too close, can you step back?’ and he was like, ‘Don’t tell me what to do.’”

Ryan told police she picked a nearby baseball bat to create space between her mother and stepfather.

“I held on to the end and then, actually, I fell and he took it into his hands, like he was going to do something with it,” she said.  “When he took the bat, I saw his face for, like, a second and, honestly, it didn’t look like him.  He just looked like pure rage, like he was just seeing red.”

After that, everyone involved fell to the floor.  Ryan said she was able to get out of the house, but her stepfather continued to struggle with her uncle, Alex Cox.  Cox claimed he shot Vallow in self-defense, but Ryan didn’t witness that.

“I heard a noise.  I know what it was, now, but it sounded like… I knew the baseball bat was in there, and it sounded like someone took it and hit it really hard against the floor,” she said.

Ryan and Vallow-Daybell told officers they left the home to take JJ Vallow to school, but they stopped at Burger King, first. 

Police records show the statements made by Vallow-Daybell and Cox didn’t match the physical evidence found at the scene.  For instance, Cox claimed he fired when Vallow approached him, but officers say the evidence shows Vallow was shot once when he was already on the ground.  Also, Cox claimed he called 911 immediately after the shooting, but video shows Cox didn’t call for help until 42 minutes after Vallow-Daybell arrived at Burger King.

The bodies of Tylee Ryan and JJ Vallow were found on Chad Daybell’s property in Idaho in June of 2020.

Read more:

• Lori Vallow remains unfit for trial, Chad Daybell’s trial to be rescheduled
• Idaho prosecutors to seek death penalty against Chad Daybell