Mom of Idaho kids missing since September arrested in Hawaii

HONOLULU (AP) — The disappearance of an Idaho boy and his teenage sister last year has led to the arrest of their mother in Hawaii, a major development in a bizarre case that spans multiple states, includes three mysterious deaths and touches on the mother’s doomsday beliefs.

Lori Vallow, 46, also known as Lori Daybell, was arrested Thursday on an Idaho warrant and was being held on $5 million bail, according to police on the island of Kauai. Vallow has been charged with two felony counts of child abandonment.

Seven-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow and 17-year-old Tylee Ryan have not been seen since September. Police in the city of Rexburg, Idaho, have said they “strongly believe that Joshua and Tylee's lives are in danger.”

Newly released court documents in eastern Idaho paint a bleak picture, with police saying Vallow lied several times about her children’s whereabouts and that JJ’s winter clothes and other belongings have been found in an abandoned storage unit. Rexburg police Lt. Ron Ball wrote in a court document filed this week that Vallow’s bank account shows no sign that she is providing money to anyone to care for the kids.

Tylee hasn’t been seen since Sept. 8, Ball wrote. JJ was enrolled at a school for three weeks and was last seen alive there, shortly before Vallow told school workers that she was going to start homeschooling the boy.

“We have not been able to find any witnesses who have seen J.V. since September 24, 2019,” Ball wrote in a probable cause affidavit.

Police also have said Vallow and her husband, Chad Daybell, have lied about the children's whereabouts and even their existence. Daybell told someone that Vallow had no kids, and she told another person that her daughter had died more than a year earlier, authorities said.

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