Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Cult Mom Lori Vallow: "I WANTED TO MURDER HIM,' now eyed in 4TH MURDER.

Episode Date: November 16, 2020

As cult mom Lori Vallow awaits trial in the death of her children, we find out she has been named a person of interest in the death of her third husband, Joseph Ryan. Ryan's decomposing body was found in his home and his cause of death was ruled a heart attack. His body was then cremated. Audio has surfaced of Vallow saying she had a murderous heart and wanted to kill Ryan. Ryan and Vallow were in a custody battle over their daughter, Tylee.Joining Nancy Grace Today: Annie Cushing - sister of Joseph Ryan Keith Taniguchi - Attorney for Joseph Ryan in divorce from Lori Vallow, Defense Attorney, Austin, Texas. www.keithtaniguchilaw.com Dr. Angela Arnold - Psychiatrist, Atlanta Ga www.angelaarnoldmd.com Joe Scott Morgan - Professor of Forensics Jacksonville State University, Author, "Blood Beneath My Feet;" Featured on "Poisonous Liaisons" on True Crime Network Nate Eaton - Reporter, East Idaho News TIP LINE: Phoenix "Silent Witness" 480-WITNESS [phone] Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Cult Mom, Lori Vallow. It should send chills down your spine since the bodies of her two children, seven-year-old JJ and teen Tylee, her daughter, were found burned, dismembered, buried in the backyard, essentially, of her brand new husband, number five. But now we learn bombshell happening now is cult mom Lori Vallow suspected in yet another death? Another death. We are not letting it go.

Not letting it go. Listen to this count. You've got the two children, her brother, Alex Cox, dead. You've got the husband, Charles Vallow, shot dead by Lori Vallow's brother while she's standing there supervising. But now, oh wait, I forgot Tammy Daybell. That's five. Jackie, have I left anybody out? Well, apparently we have. Again, thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation. Joining me, an all-star panel, Nate Eaton, the guy who cracked much of this case, wide-open reporter, author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon, and now the star of a new series on TV, Poisonous Liaisons on the True Crime Network, renowned psychiatrist, and boy, do we need a shrink, Dr. Angela Arnold joining me from the Atlanta jurisdiction. She's at AngelaArnoldMD.com, attorney for Lori Vallow, cult mom's one of her husband, Joseph Ryan. He represented

Joseph Ryan in the divorce from Lori Vallow. And you can find him at Keith Tanny Gutsch, L.I. Law dot com. I'll let him explain that. And special guest joining us, Joseph Ryan's sister, Annie Cushing. First of all to you, Nate Eaton, reporter, EastIdahoNews.com. Nate, I very rarely, very rarely, if ever, wait, rephrase, never have I gotten to say I told you so. Never. Not once. You've always been right on everything that you've reported regarding cult mom Lori Vallow. But finally, I get to say I told you.

What's the news, Nate Eaton? Well, a recording surfaced recently, and this recording is Lori Vallow in a group meeting with some of her friends where she flat out says she wanted to murder her third husband, Joseph Ryan, that she had a murderous heart and that had she not turned to her church, turned to her religion, she would have killed him because she said that he was molesting her children and she was so full of anger and rage toward him that she wanted to kill him. And this recording came to light. Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.

Before we start maligning the dead. So her husband, Joseph Ryan, turns up dead in his own home. I believe in his own bed. And nobody knows anything until the neighbors smell a foul odor coming from the home. Okay. He was, of course, declared dead and immediately cremated. Now, the only person that we know of that has said anything about this molestation is cult mom Lori Vallow.

So if you want to take her word for it, and then this husband turns up dead. Well, you know what? Let's take a listen to Kim Powell, AZ Family TV 3 News. Listen. Someone wise was speaking to me and said, you need to go to the temple. So I went and met my bishop, and I was like, I'm either going to turn my life to the temple,

or I'm going to commit murder. Joseph died in April 2018, several months before this recording took place. At the time, it was ruled an apparent heart attack. But now, Phoenix police say they're going to review the case. Joseph's sister released a statement to Arizona's family saying in part, It may have been reasonable to perform a cursory autopsy and rule the cause of death as natural at the time. It went on to say, when someone shows you who they are, believe them.

So a bombshell right now, cult mom Lori Vallow is now being investigated regarding the death of, I think it's husband number three, Joseph Ryan. Now, I just want to clarify something. Nate Eaton, reporter at EastIdahoNews.com, when she is telling this story that someone told her, you need to go to temple. And she told the bishop there at the Latter-day Saints, the Mormons, that either she needed to turn her life around and she was going to murder her husband. But as she's telling this story, Nate, she's speaking about what happened back when. For all I know, she had a

quote, murderous heart at the same time Ryan was killed. Well, yeah, that's quite possible. Now, they divorced in 2005. So they have been divorced what would be 15 years. So it's been quite some time.

But divorce. They were together. Hold on, Nate. Let me clarify. I did not ask you when their divorce was. I'm asking you about when she had a murderous heart. She was divorced from Ryan when Tammy Daybell died, right? And she was divorced from Ryan when Tylee and JJ were murdered.

She was divorced from Ryan when her brother drops dead. I mean, the divorce is irrelevant to who killed Joseph Ryan. They were still fighting about custody. They were still fighting about custody. They were still fighting about Tylee visiting him. You know, hate is hard to die, Nate Eaton. Yeah, very true. And one of the problems here is that because he died and he was cremated so quickly,

I mean, within a matter of days, so it's not like you can go and exhume the body and do any sort of tests or anything like that. Who made that decision that he'd be cremated? That might be a better question for Annie or for his attorney. Good, good question. Let me go out to Teeth Taniguchi. This is the lawyer for Joseph Ryan in the divorce for Lori Vallow. Keith, all along, when all of these bodies are popping up around cult mom Lori Vallow, I couldn't help but notice Joseph Ryan, one of her husbands, possibly the one she hated the most, was rushed into cremation.

Yeah, I'm aware of that. What are your thoughts, Keith? I can speculate. Well, I can speculate because of the decomposition of his body that that may have led to their decision. But I'm not a coroner or anything like that. I don't know who. The only person I know who had the authority to, you know, proceed that way would have been his sister. I believe she's on this line. Yes, she is.

He didn't have any other relatives. Annie Cushing, who gave the okay for Joseph Ryan to be cremated, or was it a decision based on the fact his body had already started to decompose? My understanding is that the state made the call because they couldn't get a hold of anyone because Lori and I maintained contact over the years, but she never told me that Joe had died. I had found out through a relative being forwarded one of these letters where they were seeking family members. And so it's my understanding that by the time I found out he had already been cremated. So I think it was because he was an unclaimed body.

That's my understanding. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. I want to circle back to the investigation going on right now to the death of Lori Vallow, I think, third husband, Joseph Ryan. Take a listen to this, KSL TV. Joseph Ryan died of an apparent heart attack without anyone knowing. Annie Cushing, his sister, says she doesn't want the same fate for his daughter, 17-year-old Tylee Ryan. ANNIE CUSHING, SISTER, 17-YEAR-OLD TYLEE RYAN, 17-YEAR-OLD

They were just madly in love. I had never seen Joe that happy. ANNIE CUSHING, SISTER, 17-YEAR-OLD TYLEE RYAN, 17-YEAR-OLD Annie recalls her brother Joe Ryan's marriage to Lori Vallow as a joyful start for the couple. ANNIE CUSHING, SISTER, 17-YEAR-OLD TYLEE RYAN, 17-YEAR-OLD My brother had never been married and he had never had a child, so he was over the moon. However, Annie says her relationship soured. The couple divorced when Tylee was 18 months old.

You know, she kind of felt like, you know, like a sister. Annie says she felt close to Lori until Joe's death in 2018 when she flew to Arizona to be with Tylee. There was also a lot of tension between Tylee and Lori. And he says Lori discouraged Tylee from speaking about her dad. She would actually say, the world is a better place without Joe Ryan. Wow, talk about a premonition. The world is a better place without Joe Ryan. And then suddenly the world was without Joe Ryan. The speaker was cult mom Lori Vallow, already charged in connection with the deaths of her children, JJ, just seven years old, and Tylee, teen girl Tylee, now suspected in the

death of Tammy Daybell, her new husband's ex-wife. She died just days before the two of them jet off to Hawaii for a beachside wedding. But now, dragged into the mix, 59-year-old Joseph Ryan, one of her husbands, that died an unusual death being found already in decomposure. Take a listen to Justin Lum, Fox 10. It's been more than two years since Joseph Ryan died, but now an audio recording of Lori Vallow provided to Ryan's sister has surfaced as well as other information. So Phoenix PD is now reviewing the case. Now the history between Vallow and Ryan goes back more than a decade with a custody battle

over their daughter Tylene. For the first time, we hear from Ryan's former lawyer. Alleged audio of Lori Vallow from October 2018 confirmed to be recorded by someone in her religious circle shares a disturbing statement about her third ex-husband Joseph Ryan. I was going to murder him. I was going to kill him. On April 3rd, 2018, months before this recording, Ryan died in his Phoenix apartment. Sergeant Mercedes Fortune says a death investigation is now getting a second look. Just looking at it again, reviewing it and making sure that there's things that were, that maybe could have been overlooked, that are being looked into now. Straight out to the lawyer there, Representative Joseph Ryan, now dead in his divorce from cult mom Lori Vallow.

Keith Taniguchi joining us from Texas. Keith, again, thank you for being with us. Tell me what happened in that divorce. What did you learn about cult mom Lori Vallow? The initial allegation from Lori Vallow was that he was sexually abusing Tylee. And basically the law, unfortunately, errs on the side of caution in these kind of cases. And so Joe became the subject of an investigation, both criminal, one criminal. And then it became an issue in their divorce. The allegation was just, well, it was an outcry.

The outcry that she reports to the police is just horrendous. I mean, it's just sexual abuse. Now, when you're saying she, Keith, are you referring to cult mom Lori Vallow? Yes, she made the allegations and she said the victim was Tylee. Guys, I want you to take a listen to more words from Lori Vallow, cult mom, talking about how she does not get much sleep because angels wake her up all night giving her instructions on what to do. I too, like Melanie, have had the love of Jesus Christ washed over me. There is nothing like that on this earth. It is life changing and eternity altering. I love my Savior with my whole heart. I have had some wonderful experiences.

I have been ministered to by the angel Moroni. I have seen him. I have had lots of angelic ministry with people who wake me up four o'clock in the morning and tell me things to do. I no longer need to sleep very much because I'm woken up constantly by angels and giving me instructions on things that I can, I can do to help further the father's work. Okay. I got to figure out what to make of that because I'm all for angels. But I also recall Nate Eaton. Do you you recall that call mom Lori Vallow warned away another husband, claiming that she had an avenging angel that would kill him.

And lo and behold, when that husband showed up for visitation, he got shot dead. Remember that quote, avenging angel? Yeah, she called her brother, Alex Cox, who's now dead her avenging angel alex would do anything for laurie he loved laurie he even moved to idaho with her and she warned her fourth husband charles vallow that she would kill him and he actually called the police and said she's she's gone crazy you guys need to do something and lo and behold he did show up and was shot and killed by Alex. To Joseph Scott Morgan, professor of forensic at Jacksonville State University.

Joe Scott, I want to talk to you about the decision to cremate Joseph Ryan, cult mom Lori Vallow's, I think, third husband. I find that very, very disturbing because I believe it was called by the state, just like Annie Cushing told us, but we never really got the cause of death. They assumed it was because of his heart. Hold on, Joe Scott. Annie Cushing, this is Joe's sister, Annie. So Lori Vallow knew that Joseph Ryan had been found dead but did not tell you? No. She

never told me. In fact, I found out through another relative who had been forwarded one of these letters that had been sent out to try to find family or someone to claim Joe's body and I reached out to Lori and then she told me

that she knew he had died. So she did know, but had not contacted any of his family. That's correct. Yeah. So I found out in, I think it was mid May and I have, I know that she was contacted by police on April 13th and she even sent me a copy of her notes from that meeting. I was also, I also learned that at some point to you, Nate Eaton, that Tylee recanted the claims that her father had ever molested her. Is that true? There were some questions raised about it. We do know that her older brother, Colby, he has said on the record that he was molested by Joe Ryan. And when asked about Tylee, he did not comment about Tylee's allegations. Okay, so I'm talking to you about Tylee. Let's go to our cut 15. Take a listen to Fox 10. The police report says Ryan's

neighbor smelled a strong odor and noticed flies inside the apartment. A maintenance worker couldn't get in through the front door because of an engaged secondary lock, so he used a ladder to access an open window. Police say the 59-year-old had been dead for a couple days. There were no signs of forced entry. Ryan's autopsy determined he died of a heart attack. To this moment there isn't any additional information that will lead investigators to believe that there was foul play. Police did contact Lori Vallow listed as next of kin more than a week after the discovery. The report says she told officers she had not heard from her ex-husband in two years but they shared a child in common,

Tylee Ryan. The custody battle over their daughter stems back to Austin, Texas. Keith Taniguchi represented Ryan for a couple years. He says Vallow accused his client of sexually abusing Tylee when she was very young. According to court documents from 2007, a therapist said she was concerned Tylee was being pushed by her mother to make an outcry. Until one day, Tylee recanted. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, we are talking about a brand new discovery that now cult mom Lori Vallow is being investigated in the death of a previous husband, Joseph Ryan.

Ryan, the father of little Tylee that the police believe cult mom Lori Vallow and her brand new husband, number five, cult leader Chad Daybell, murdered and then buried in Daybell's property. I want to go straight to you, Keith Taniguchi, a very well-known lawyer in Austin, Texas. Keith, I'm learning that Tylee recanted the claims that Joseph Ryan had ever molested her and that a therapist who saw Tylee alone without the mother or anyone else there said she was worried that Tylee was being forced to make a an outcry which in the law an outcry is when a molestation or rape victim tells someone they've been molested. What do you know, Keith Taniguchi? Well, Kylie actually recanted to the therapist. Right. She was in therapy with Vivian, I can't recall her last name, but Vivian Lewis,

and she recanted there, and that's when the case started unraveling. There was other evidence that Lori Vallow was alleging, such as there should be DNA on his bed from both Tylee and Joseph. And so they went and removed his mattress and they cut the top off and they went and did a DNA analysis on the thing. And months later, it came back that it was negative. They didn't find anything that they were looking for. And that added fuel to the not the innocence, his innocence. And they eventually didn't have any evidence other than this alleged outcry that had been recanted. Because T. Kenny Gucci, this is the lawyer for Joseph Ryan, husband of cult mom Lori Vallow, one of them,

and he's found dead in his home, body so decomposed they can't really get a COD. They just assumed it must have been a heart attack. But when Lori Vallow learns, learns of Ryan's death, she tells nobody. To Dr. Angela Arnold, psychiatrist, I find that very, very odd that the father of your child dies and you don't call the family or anybody? It's almost like she didn't want them to know.

It's exactly like she didn't want them to know. And she wanted all of the controls surrounding everything too. She didn't want any input from anyone. I can't even imagine not calling anybody and telling them that he had died. What was she going to do with that information? She wasn't his wife anymore. To you, Annie Cushing is the sister of Joseph Ryan. You know your brother. You know him, his good, his bad, his wonderful things about him, warts and all. Do you believe there is any

chance he molested Tylee? I mean, you know, that's always a tough question because I wasn't there. But based on what I've read from, you know, all of these court documents and what I witnessed from Lori when I was out in Phoenix in 2018, the way she spoke about this, I mean, she had no filter. She talked about it in front of Tylee and there was like, she was like manic about it. And, you know, she just didn't treat it with any of the, you know, like the appropriate, like parental protocols that you would expect if you really thought your child was molested. So all of those things combined indicate to me that this was more the result of Lori's machinations in order to win custody and to completely with me. This is Joseph Ryan's sister. We see the same thing happening over and over because when Charles Vallow was coming to everything she could to keep J.J. away from his father. And so we see the same thing happening again that happened with Ryan. Exactly. And not only J.J.'s father, but his grandparents.

You know, it was Kay and Larry Woodcock that said the visits, even on an iPad, on a phone, drastically were cut back. She didn't want anybody to associate with her children. She wanted complete control. And also this whole thing about angels visiting her teeth, Taniguchi teeth. I make it no secret that I'm a Christian and I say I'm practicing, you know, because I've got a long way to go. But as much as I've longed for it, I've never had an angel visit. Lori Vallow says angels come to her all the time, including the prophet Moroni.

I'm just wondering, since she referred to her brother, Alex Cox, as an avenging angel who gunned down her husband for her, I wonder if an angel also told her to make up the lie that Joseph Ryan molested Tylee and to kill him. Well, when I found out that she was a devout Mormon and much of her actions seemed to be coming from her religious belief, I was not familiar with the Mormon religion.

And so I went and bought three books. I ended up buying three books about Mormonism. And each time I read one, I would go to, well, I need more information. So I read three books about it. And she was doing a hybrid of what I was reading. But she was definitely devout. I mean, I will have to tell you that I had a call from the second-ranking bishop of the Mormon church on her behalf, trying to vouch for her veracity. And I was flabbergasted, for one, that she could get that done. But then I took it with a grain of salt, and I did not take the gentleman's word on her veracity because I felt she was seriously disturbing. Well, you know what, Keith?

I don't know a lot, but I know this much. I know that murder is not a teaching of Christianity or Mormonism. I know that much. And here she is describing how she wants to murder people. And then you've got her two dead children and her other dead husband. You got Tammy Daybell dead, her brother dead. I mean, the bodies are piling up. The Mormon church has completely disassociated themselves with whatever cult she was in the

middle of. I want you to take a listen to our cut number six. I want you to hear Lori Vallow speaking in her own words about when it's okay to kill somebody. This is a recording of a religious discussion that happened in 2018. Joseph Ryan's sister obtained it and released it to Phoenix police after hearing Lori say this. I went through a lot of years of this kind of hard stuff, and I was going to murder him. I was going to kill him, like the scriptures say, like Nephi killed him, just to stop the pain and to stop him coming after me and to stop him coming after my children. According to custody documents in 2011,

Lori and her third husband, Joseph, went through a contentious custody battle over Tylee. I just thought I couldn't take it anymore. And I would go through the scriptures and find all the things. Like, if he comes against you once, if he comes against you twice, if he comes against you three times, then you can kill him. It says it in the scriptures. There it is. There's my answer. I don't want to do anything that's wrong. This isn't the first time Lori threatened his life. According to those same custody documents, she told a court-appointed psychologist that, quote,

death would be an option before giving Tylee to her father, even for a visit. It's just as clear as the nose on your face. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, another body count, apparently, under consideration of being added to the tally of cult mom Lori Vallow. Almost too much to take in. We're hearing in her own words that she would consider murder before even one more visitation between husband Joseph Ryan and their daughter Tylee. Tylee later found dead. I want you to hear our cut three, Lori Vallow talking to a religious group.

And this was posted by you, Nate Eaton, at eastidahonews.com. Someone wise was speaking to me and said, you need to go to the temple. So I went and met my bishop and I was like, I'm either going to turn my life to the temple or I'm going to commit murder. So do you want to give me a temple recommend? And I was perfectly honest because at that point I had nothing to lose. You get to the bottom rung and I had nothing to lose. And he gave me my temple recommend. And I started going to the temple every week by myself, not with my current

husband, just by myself to the temple, to the Mesa temple, which I love. We moved here from Texas to get away from my ex-husband that was doing all this, but he moved here like five miles away from us just to continue to torture me. That was his whole entire job. And Satan had been torturing me since I was a little kid. So I've had that my whole life. So she is now equating husband Joseph Ryan with Satan. I want to go straight out to Joseph Scott Morgan. I started with you a moment ago, Joe Scott, but I got carried away with basically cult mom Lori Vallow admitting she wanted to murder Joseph Ryan. That's pretty strong evidence.

Joe Scott, the decision for Joseph Ryan to be cremated so quickly, why would they just assign heart problems for COD cause of death if he's decomposed that much? Is it because they think they found heart medication there? Yeah. And, you know, the thing that's so puzzling about this, Nancy, is the fact that he's a rather young man at the time of his death. It's not like this guy was well up into his 80s, 70s, 80s. And I don't know that necessarily he had some kind of major cardiac event. We don't know at this point in time, at least I don't, because I have yet to be able to review the autopsy report as to whether or not he had, say, blockage in his heart, if he had had a previous heart attack.

Now, I do know that he was on medication for elevated cholesterol. It's called hyperlipidemia. So this draws into question. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Joe Scott, half of this country is on medication for cholesterol. Yeah, they are. Because everybody wants to keep eating fat and red meat and everything else that gives you high cholesterol.

So Joe Scott. Yeah. She says she wants to keep eating fat and red meat and everything else that gives you high cholesterol. So, Jo Scott. Yeah. She says she wants to murder him. And bam, he turns up dead and gets cremated because his body's so decomposed. She finds out first that he's dead and tells nobody in the family. Yeah. You know what? You got off track. I asked you if the body is so decomposed that they've got a cremate.

How the hay did they come up with heart? Well, because heart disease is the number one killer in America. So? I can tell you. No, that's their default position, Nancy. That's what they're going to do. And listen, there's a thread that runs through. Should have been undetermined. Joe Scott should have been

undetermined. There's a thread that runs through all of these cases from the medical legal aspect. And it comes down to one four letter word. And that is lazy, lazy, lazy, lazy. Laurie, L-O-R-I. When we begin to think about Tammy, when we begin to think about tammy daybell dies in her sleep from natural causes the brother alex cox dies from an aneurysm natural causes everybody's dropping dead from natural causes yeah it's it's almost like we're dealing with the angel of death and there is one other angel that i don't know that maybe how about lucifer maybe lucifer was talking to her i don't know but this is a damn nightmare. I think you and I need to butt out of the religious area and leave that to the religious scholars,

and I'll stick to the law, and you stick to medical examinations and death investigations. But I can tell you this much. When somebody says, I want to murder this guy, and he turns up dead by unknown causes, and she finds out he's dead and tells nobody. I mean, Annie Cushion, weigh in. You're Joe Ryan's sister for Pete's sake. Absolutely. I mean, I agree with the analysis that this just comes down to laziness.

It just looked expeditious. Like, oh, well, no one's calling and inquiring about Joseph. We found medication. It was an external examination. So, you know, I agree with you, Nancy. It should have been undetermined if you're not right. Annie, did you just say they did an external examination? Yes.

They did? Yes. Joe Scott. So I can look at Jackie and go, ohie oh yeah she's dead of a heart attack this just keeps getting better and better no it's getting worse and worse well like i said earlier it's a nightmare and the problem is you can't go back and correct this you can't he's been wrong he's been cremated you can't go back. And even on a decomposed body that's been partially embalmed, you could go back and maybe you could exhume the body and determine whether or not he had an enlarged heart. Or if he had coronary artery disease. But that's left the stables by this point in time.

There's nothing, and I mean nothing, you can do at this point in time. You know what? You're right, Joe Scott. That cow is out of the barn. So Nate Eaton with me, who is the expert on this case, reporter East Idaho News dot com. It goes on. And I've got so much sound of Lori Vallow talking about wanting to kill Joseph Ryan. I was going to murder him.

I was going to kill him. Like the scriptures say, what scripture? What is she talking about? Well, she's quoting some scriptures in the in the Book of Mormon where a leader at the time of prophet was was killed, an evil man. This was an evil leader who had killed thousands. So the comparison, there really is no comparison here. She's trying to use that, it sounds like, to justify going after her ex-husband to kill him. But, you know, we spoke with religious scholars about these exact scriptures she's quoting, and they told us there's no comparison here. You can't compare these. As you said, Christianity, Mormonism, murder is not okay. It's not okay. So, Nate, where does it stand right now?

Well, right now, thanks to Annie Cushing bringing this to light, the Phoenix police have announced that they're taking a look at their investigation into Joseph's death. And, you know, this has come in the past few days. They're going to take a look into what exactly happened here. Are they still, quote, taking a look into the cause of death of Tammy Daybell? That we are waiting on the autopsy results for that. They have not made them public if they have come out. But that is still an active investigation by the Idaho attorney general, along with whether potential charges involving murder should come against Chad and Lori.

They are sitting in jail. The trial has been moved, pushed back until next summer. And so there will be several more months of new developments, I imagine. We wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.