Dateline Originals - Mommy Doomsday - Ep. 6: What Happened to the Children

Episode Date: December 18, 2023

The six-month search for Lori’s two missing children has followed a trail from snowy Idaho to sunny Kauai and back again. And the question of where the children are is finally answered.This episode was originally published on March 4, 2021. 

Rexburg police still hadn't seen JJ. The day after they came to Lori's house to do a welfare check, they came back, this time with a warrant. They searched her home, but they didn't find Lori's kids, and they didn't find Lori. Lori and Chad had apparently fled. Add two missing newlyweds to the search for two missing kids. The story blew up worldwide.

Tylee and JJ's faces seemed to be everywhere. Along with stories about Chad and Lori's end times beliefs, their talk of zombies and evil spirits. And the fact that these newlyweds were also newly widowed. Each had a spouse who died recently and suddenly. As for Chad and Lori, they laid low for weeks until they turned up in Kauai. And that's where we caught up with them.

Hey, Chad and Lori, it's Dateline. How are you? We're just wondering where you guys are headed to. You guys headed back to Idaho? You guys heading out today? No, no comment. And now here they were, walking to the beach in flip-flops and swimsuits, January in Hawaii, away from the cold Rexburg snow. And away from the cold shoulder of some of their friends and family.

It had been two months since JJ and Tylee were reported missing. Where are your kids? There's a lot of people who are worried about your kids. Are you guys worried about them? A Dateline producer followed them out of their hotel, but they wouldn't comment. This Hawaii getaway might seem like a last-minute move. Chad and Lori were under scrutiny. The police and the FBI were on the case.

So they escaped to Lori's happy place. But no, this move was planned. Back in the fall, about three weeks before the welfare check, Chad emailed a property manager looking for a place to live on the island. He described himself and Lori as a clean couple with no pets or children. No children.

What do you guys have to say to the people who are looking for your kids? Should they be looking for them? Days before we found them, Lori had missed an important deadline. A judge had ordered her to present JJ and Tylee in a Rexburg courtroom on January 25, 2020. Are you headed back to Idaho today? Where are you guys headed?

Three weeks after we recorded this video, Lori was arrested for violating the court order. Two weeks after that, police escorted her back to Idaho and the jail cell. Chad, who was not arrested, remained a free man. And JJ's grandparents, Kay and Larry Woodcock, waited for answers. How are you feeling? Kay and Larry Woodcock waited for answers. How are you feeling? Today, I'm sad, and I just am sad. I don't know why.

We'll see her in hand, Gus. But my dream is tomorrow we walk into court, and the kids are there. Yeah. That's our dream. We just want those kids. We want to know they're okay. You know, when you've had so many people say, be prepared for the worst, that hurts.

JJ's grandparents and Tylee's brother tried to hold on to hope as Laurie prepared for court. And Chad remained a free man for now. The couple was back in Rexburg, their gathering place, where they were the so-called chosen ones, the leaders of the Second Coming.

But would the courtroom offer the salvation they imagined? The bodies were piling up. Laurie's husband, Charles, Chad's wife, Tammy, Laurie's brother, Alex. And the question remains, where are the kids? The six-month search for Lori's two missing children has led us on a cross-country investigation from the snowy hills of Idaho to the sandy beaches of Kauai. It's about to conclude in a barren backyard pet cemetery

and a cold, lonely jail cell. This story is about Lori Vallow, her two missing kids, and finally, the truth about what happened to them. You're listening to Dateline NBC's newest podcast, Mommy Doomsday. March 6, 2020. Lori walked into a Madison County courtroom for her arraignment, wearing orange and white stripes. Her blonde hair looked messier, longer.

Not the usual styling of a former hairdresser. But she did have on bright red lipstick. We later learn from another inmate, the jail doesn't allow lipstick. But some people make it themselves, using Jolly Rancher candies. This criminal complaint was filed here in Madison County on February 18th, 2020. It is State of Idaho versus Lori Noreen Vallow, aka Lori Noreen Daybell. Her lawyers asked the court to lower her bail, which was set at a staggering five million dollars. After all this time, police still hadn't found Lori's kids, JJ and Tylee. And now Kay and Larry and Colby were here in court to see the person they held responsible for their pain and worry.

They sat in the front row, stared at the woman they once knew, and waited for answers. It charges the defendant with five different counts. The first count is desertion and non-support of children or spouse. That count is a felony under Idaho law, Idaho Code 18-401, Section 1. Lori looked like a kid at a high school play, a little nervous, enjoying the attention. She stole an expectant glance at Chad in the courtroom behind her while the judge read her charges.

It designates or alleges that the defendant, Lori Noreen Vallow, a.k.a. Lori Noreen Daybell, did desert a child under the age of 18 to wit. J.V. Data Bird. Watching this, Lori's son Colby was like a man caught in a strange dream. Education or support with the intent to abandon J.V. The first like five seconds, I couldn't even think. And then I really started looking at her.

I'm like, that's my little mom. Like, I can't believe that is actually my mom. All these people are here to talk about my two missing siblings. And that's when I started tearing up because they started reading her, you know, why she's, you know, in jail. And it just got so real so fast. And seeing Chad, like, it just all came together. Like, it's like watching a movie and then going to a set or something. It's like not real. Cole watched and listened

as the judge continued. Did willfully delay and or obstruct a public officer by giving false information regarding the whereabouts of a child JV date of birth 5-25-2012 and thereby delaying the search for JV. Criminal charges for obstructing the search for her kids. It had been months since Colby had seen his little sister Tylee, his beloved little brother JJ. None of this made sense to him. I thought they'd go to her house, knock on the door, they answer, oh, they're right here. You know what I mean? Nothing very difficult.

If it was only that simple. I wanted that contact and just say, I do love you, but whatever is happening with you right now has caused an atomic bomb. And my siblings are gone. Charles is gone. Alex is gone. Chad's wife is gone.

The kids are missing. You're in jail. How much worse can you get? Colby spent the entire hearing trying to lock eyes with his mom, looking for signs of her former self. I came all the way here to see you. Like, you're right there. I know we're in the same room. You're 20 feet away.

And I just couldn't get that look that I was looking for the entire time. And it's just so hard to be cut off, to be in this situation. In court, the prosecutor continued. On how we got here and why the bond or the bell was set and what it's at. This case didn't start as a criminal case, Your Honor. It started as a report of two missing children who were still missing. We're all just part of this. It's like, I don't want to like say the wrong thing, but we're just in this sad group. We're all just these people that have just been affected by the same thing,

and we're all there for a different reason. And it's like we just all had to band together in that way and walk into that room, and everybody's emotions are different. Lori hired a custody attorney. Why would she fight for custody if her kids weren't alive? It was a slim thread for the family to hold on to as they filed out of the courtroom and gave the slip to the enormous crowd outside.

As global as this story was, it was first and foremost local news. Reporters Nate Eaton and Eric Grossarth of East Idaho News are the two guys who were there from the beginning. They told the world about the search for J.J. and Tylee. And they're also NBC News contributors. So tell me how you came across this in the first place. There may be a story here, and I'd love to hear what it is. We were driving in the car, and they sent out the news release that there was two kids that were endangered. And they also talked about how it may be tied to a suspicious death

in the neighboring county. I had heard from a few police sources that something big was happening. And big around here might be drugs, might be... We don't have murders around here. We don't have kids that go missing. We don't have multi-state investigations. That is very bizarre for eastern Idaho. Eastern Idaho is millions of acres. But despite its size, most people around here seem to know each other or have friends or family in common. And Rexburg is a close-knit community. Locals have been following the story from the start and feeding tips to the newsroom.

Tips that have helped the investigation. I was actually sitting in church on Sunday when our weekend editor sent me a message saying, this man that owns a storage shed wants to speak to you. I stepped out of church, got in my car, I called him up. He said, you actually did a story on me years ago when I got arrested, so I didn't really like you, but I think I have something that can help in this case of the missing

kids. Like I said, close-knit. Lori Ryan, she used her name Ryan, came into my storage facility October 1st and rented a unit from me. The police served a search warrant on that unit in November.

The stuff is still here. Would you like the footage and would you like to see the unit? What did you think when you heard that? Holy cow, yes. Yes. The owner of the

storage facility showed Nate's security cam video. And there they were, Lori and Chad moving boxes and large black duffel bags in and out

of the storage unit. Then he took Nate to the unit at 10 by 10 foot space. And inside was everything you might expect to find in a child's bedroom. Except the child. But I got to tell you, when he pulled open that door and there were all of those children's items there, it was kind of a creepy, sad feeling. I mean, there's a backpack with JJ's initials on it and there's a scooter and there's a mitt, a baseball mitt, a baseball glove. And then we pull open some blankets and there's blankets with photos of each of the kids.

Who would fold that up and put it in a cold storage bin? That was the most shocking to me as a father, that I can't imagine the blanket with all of my kids' baby pictures I'm going to put away. And then the photo album, their baby books. And this was how long after those kids were last seen? Last seen in September, so she went in October 1st, so that could have, I mean, within a week or two. Yeah. If police found any significant evidence in the storage locker, we don't know. But the FBI had found another clue leading them right to Chad's property. It went all the way back to early September 2019, two months before the search for the children began,

when Chad sent his wife Tammy a strange text. Strange enough, the FBI later flagged it once they started investigating. The message was about burning some tree limbs in their fire pit and a few other odd backyard chores. Well, I had an interesting morning. I felt I should burn all the limb debris by the fire pit before it got too soaked by the coming storms. While I did so, I spotted a big raccoon along the fence. I felt I should burn all the limb debris by the fire pit before it got too soaked by the coming storms.

While I did so, I spotted a big raccoon along the fence. I hurried and got my gun, and he was still walking along. I got close enough that one shot did the trick. He is now in our pet cemetery. Fun times. That's FBI intelligence analyst Benjamin Dean reading the message. This text caught his attention. It was longer than other messages between the couple. It appeared to me to be the first and only message sent from Chad to Tammy in which Chad was describing and informing Tammy of his day's events in such a lengthy and detailed manner.

And then there was the date of the text, September 9th. Just a day earlier, September 8th, Lori and Alex had taken the kids to Yellowstone. Remember that trip? It was where the last known photo of Tylee was taken. So upon reading this text message in which Chad appears to claim to have started a fire, shot and killed a large animal and buried it on his property, I recognized that it was sent the day after Tylee Ryan was last seen alive and I became concerned.

The whole time we covered this story, Hope was at war with experience. As the months went on and the evidence piled up, it became clear things were not likely to end well for J.J. and Tylee. Clues about J.J.'s disappearance also led to Chad's property. Just a couple of weeks after Chad sent those unusual texts, on September 23rd, 2019, phone GPS records put Lori's brother Alex Cox in Chad's backyard, near the fire pit, where Chad told Tammy he had burned the tree limb debris, and near the pet cemetery, where Chad told Tammy he had buried that pesky raccoon. Might not seem odd for your brother to be in your husband's backyard, but it wasn't Laurie's backyard yet. This was before Laurie and Chad were married, before Tammy's death.

Tammy and Chad were still living together in that home. JJ had an unexcused absence from school that day. And the next day, Laurie met with JJ's principal. She disenrolled JJ, Lori met with J.J.'s principal. She disenrolled J.J., mentioned homeschooling. The principal didn't see J.J. with her. And J.J. never returned to school again. That same day, Lori also let J.J.'s babysitter know that her services would no longer be needed. Lori told her J.J. had gone to visit his grandma.

But we all know better than to believe that. Which brings us to June 9, 2020, eight months later. Lori was still in jail. Chad was at home. When reporter Nate Eaton got a notification on his phone. I'm out for a run and I get a message from a friend who lives in Chad's neighborhood who said, I just got a text message that there's 15 to 20 police officers in front of Chad's house. So I immediately start texting and calling law enforcement sources, and my phone is buzzing nonstop, buzz, buzz, buzz.

I call Eric, who lives five minutes from the scene, and I say, get over there. For months, the reporters wondered when Chad would be arrested, and now police were at his doorstep. Ray Hermosillo was one of them. We were able to make contact with Mr. Daybell's son, who answered the front door. He and another son led us into Mr. Daybell's room, where he was told that we had a search warrant for the property. Detective Hermosillo works for the Rexburg Police Department.

His team was just one of the many groups at Chad's house that day. Mr. Daybell came out of the room. He was able to sit in the kitchen area. He was allowed to speak with his attorney inside the kitchen area. Mr. Daybell was told if he wanted to stay on the property, which he could have, he would have to be accompanied by an officer for officer safety reasons. He was also told he was free to leave the residence if he wanted to. Chad did leave the house, but he stayed on the property, walked outside, sat in his parked car. Detective Hermosillo followed to keep an eye on him.

Three hours into the search, Chad got a phone call. And he wasn't talking to just anybody. He was on the phone with Lori. She'd called him from jail. They called from a post office. Hello? Are you okay? They were searching the house.

The house right now? Yeah. Yeah. Lori asked Chad if the police were searching the house. Chad said, no, they were searching the property. No, they're not searching the property. Are they stealing stuff again? They're searching.

He had the phone in his right hand and was intently continuing looking over his right shoulder. That's Detective Hermosillo again. He was standing near Chad's parked car. He would look over his right shoulder for a while, break contact, talk on the phone for a second, and then he would continue looking back over his right shoulder. Pretty intently over his right shoulder. Pretty intently over his right shoulder. And what was over Chad's right shoulder? The pet cemetery, where police were starting to search.

When Lori asked if she should call Chad later, he said, I don't know. You can try. I'll reach if I can. Okay. I love you and I'll talk soon. can try. I would estimate we probably had about 50, 50 law enforcement personnel, maybe, maybe up to a hundred people. That's FBI Special Agent Steve Daniels. He helped search nearly four acres of Chad's property. We were essentially in a line and we looked at the ground very systematically, very methodically, and we went back and forth across his property, looking at the ground, looking for indications of a clandestine grave, because

that's what we're there looking for. Eric Grossarth, also a reporter from East Idaho News, was still trying to get to Chad's house, but the roads were blocked. Yeah, so like I'm on the other side of this roadblock, and so I have to take this several mile detour to get around where police are searching. And when Eric said he couldn't get in, I thought, well, how are we going to cover this? What's a small town reporter to do?

Nate drove to the airport and jumped in a helicopter. He was in the air around 9 a.m. looking down at the Daybell Family Pet Cemetery. And what instantly stood out to me was there was blue tarps, and there was orange or pink tape that had marked out areas that they were focused on searching. I also noticed a canine dog immediately. A cadaver dog used to search for bodies. Nate watched all this unfold from the helicopter. Eric was still on the ground. And as the morning goes on, we of course hear that

there may be a backhoe coming down the road. And sure enough, 10 minutes later, on the side road that was blocked off, there comes a backhoe, and they pull it in to the property. I was like, they're looking for something. I mean, that's a pretty serious search to bring a backhoe in. The search team stopped near the pet cemetery and started digging. Here's Detective Hermosillo and Special Agent Daniels again. They removed some topsoil that was right underneath the sod, which revealed three large white rocks, flat rocks.

They removed the rocks, and underneath the white rocks was some thin wood paneling. Initially, as soon as they removed the paneling, I could smell the odor of a decomposing body. Once we discovered the human remains in burial site number one, in burial site number two, and we recovered those remains, that was where we stopped. Chad was watching. He started his car and drove away. He didn't get far.

There was no chase to speak of. The police just pulled him over, then got him out of the car and put him in handcuffs. And just a mile south of his house, there's sitting Chad's car with two police cars behind it, a deputy and a police officer, and they were waiting for that tow truck. Chad was already off and gone. That was probably five minutes after they took him into custody. And they came and got the tow truck and took his car into Rexburg. And so I started heading back to the scene from that point.

That's when the sheriff called a news conference. And they got us all together really quickly and said, yes, we are here searching in relation to these two missing kids, JJ and Tylee. And yes, we did find human remains, but they are not identified at this time. It was later confirmed. The human remains found in Chad's backyard belonged to Tylee and JJ. And how could you walk outside every single day and see the spot knowing that there are children buried underneath that dirt? I don't know how any parent could think

that. I don't know how any person could go around and function and do your day-to-day life knowing that there's kids buried in your backyard. So it was one of, are you really that dumb to dispose of the evidence here? But also one of just how awful, how horrible to know that that's happening right there. Some people thought the search for JJ and Tylee would be endless. Idaho has miles and miles of empty land. Some even held out hope to the very end that the kids were stashed in an end times bunker somewhere, eating canned food and watching too much TV, that they'd turn up eventually and be just fine.

But the search was finally over. I remember, I forgot to mention this earlier, but when I called the sheriff that morning and he said, today's going to be different, this search. It's going to be a wonderfully sad day. And I think he meant it's going to be wonderful because we're finally going to close one aspect of this case. We're going to find out where these kids are. But it's also going to be terribly sad because of the condition that they're in.

Colby K. and Larry were no longer in the dark, no longer wondering. Their greatest fears had come true. As of now, Chad and Lori are charged with conspiracy to destroy or alter or conceal evidence. Nothing more. They have pleaded not guilty. But the authorities have made it clear Chad and Lori are under investigation for murder. Their cases have been joined by the court. Probably not the holy union they imagined. There is a tentative trial date, August 2021, but

with COVID, no telling when it will really happen. Lori's lawyer has declined to comment on the case. Chad's lawyer has not responded to our requests for comment. And meanwhile, Chad and Lori remain in jail And while Lori waits, she reads Chad's books And she writes him letters every day And she dances in her cell A source at the jail told us They've seen her on jail surveillance cameras, dancing Much as she did back in her house in Arizona

In her dancing room, the room where her husband Charles was shot to death. Back then, Laurie was dancing to Christian music or A.E.'s love songs. But now she's dancing to something imagined. There is no music at all, like a scene from a David Lynch film. And while Lori dances, investigators are putting together the pieces of her story and the trail of bodies she and Chad left behind. Like Chad's deceased wife, Tammy, we still don't know the results of her autopsy. Chad denied any responsibility for Tammy's death on the phone to Lori's friend, Melanie Gibb. My own children were there. They testified that Tammy had been getting weaker and sick, and I begged her to go to the doctor.

She just, her heart was failing her. She was physically falling apart, but she hates doctors. She just passed away. All these conspiracy theories just make me sick to my stomach. Just absolutely sick. I know I've been told three years that Tammy would pass away at a young age. Tammy's sister, Sam William, and Sam's husband, Jason, aren't holding their breath for cooperation from Chad.

I have lots of questions that I want answers to, but would he tell the truth? I don't know. So, you know, I don't know if I would get the truth from him or not. I would like to think I could, but at this point, he's not going to tell the truth. Lori and Chad are under investigation in connection with Tammy's death. What if you talked or could talk to or were in a position where you had to talk to Chad, and I'll ask this of both of you,

what would you want to know or what would you want to say to him? Yeah, what would you ask him? If you could get an honest answer, that is. Why? Why? I just want to know why. I think the question I'd ask him, and a lot of people have asked me, aren't you mad at him? Don't you want to punch him?

And the honest answer is no. What I would like to do, and if I could get an honest answer, is to say, Chad, why are you behind bars? And you're on that side and I'm on this side. What happened between when you moved to Idaho and now because something happened? Would you please tell me? I would just like to know. I just want to know. Other agencies are following the trail Lori left. Remember Lori's late ex-husband, Joe Ryan? Months after her arrest, an audio tape surfaced. It was recorded in 2018, shortly after Joe's death.

Lori talking about wanting to murder him. I had been married to someone who was very awful, who raped my children. And I had divorced him and gotten away from him. And he had joined the church. He spoke in state conference. Everyone thought he was wonderful. He was very good showman of all those things. And after we were divorced, he told everybody that I was this lying, crazy Mormon and got up in court and said all these horrible things about me and turned it around to where the judges believed him instead of me.

And he was constantly trying to get custody of my three-year-old daughter just to rub it in my face. And 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. This recording was taped secretly, but legally, by a source in Lori's inner circle. It was one of Lori's recruitment meetings where she tried to gather like-minded people. And I was just, I just thought I couldn't take it anymore. And I would go through the scriptures and find all the things like, if it comes against you once, if it comes

against you twice, if it 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. I did not have a murderous heart. I just wanted to stop the bleeding and stop the pain. The tape prompted Phoenix police to review the investigation into Joe's death. But again, they determined it was due to a heart attack. Just a coincidence. Meanwhile, we did more investigating, too. We read hundreds of pages of documents related to Laurie and Joe's custody battle

and spoke with the court-appointed experts who evaluated her claims that Joe sexually abused the children. They told us they believe Laurie made it up, manipulated the kids into saying those things about Joe. Laurie's son Colby told us he still believes Joe abused him. And what about Laurie's brother, Alex? Investigators said his death was a coincidence too, death by natural causes. But Laurie's friend Melody still has suspicions. Medical examiner now has ruled that it was natural causes, but you still wonder? Oh yeah, I still wonder. Yeah. I think everybody

in America wonders still. What about Lori's husband, Charles, shot to death by her now deceased brother? Lori is under investigation by the Chandler Police Department for possible charges in Charles' death. But the main focus remains Tylee and JJ. If Chad and Lori are charged with murdering the children, they could face the death penalty. And Idaho doesn't have an insanity defense. Melanie turned on Chad and Lori when they asked her to lie to police about JJ. She testified at Chad's preliminary hearing, telling the court

about the couple's out there religious beliefs. Did Lori believe things that you didn't believe? Yes Who taught her those things? She was taught through Chad And how do you know that? Because she didn't seem to have knowledge of the things she shared with me until she met him So how did the union of those two lead to such terrible events? Was it Chad who led Lori down the demon-haunted path? Or did she change him somehow? Was she the driver here or was Chad? Soft-spoken Chad or

enthusiastic, slightly manic Lori? I saw him as the hand and her as the puppet on that hand. They were both like gasoline and fire. Not a good match, but equally destructive to each other. So in a way, they were their equal match in that they were destructive to each other. To me, it looks like a fatal attraction that brought this to a quick abruption in people's lives. It was just a fatal attraction that was deadly, very deadly. It's amazing that people can have that much desire or wants that they'd be willing to do this for it. I can't even comprehend that. We may never know who actually killed J.J. and Tylee,

who dug the holes, who buried them in Chad's backyard. For now, the town of Rexburg mourns. Residents held a vigil for Tylee and J.J. They made a heart-shaped arch with blue and purple balloons. They prayed and sang and gazed at pictures of the kids and read letters of support for Kay and Larry and Colby and the rest of the family. These are all going to be given to the grandparents after all of this is done.

So feel free to come out, fill out a card, and put it on the board. Here at Dateline, we've covered stories where victims are never found, where people cling to the hope their loved ones might still be alive, but never know the truth. the worst kind of torture. Local reporter Nate Eaton described the community in shock. Rexburg residents were devastated by the news. But that sadness came with a slight sense of relief. The worst thing I was thinking about in covering this case for the past six months is, I hope we don't have to do a year anniversary of where are the kids, a five-year anniversary of where are the kids, every year

around the time that they vanished in September, holding vigils, asking where they are at. So as horrible as the outcome was, at least we know where the kids are. Where are the children? Such a simple question with such a twisted answer. Thank you.