New details have emerged as to how Lori Vallow allegedly lied to her family and friends to hide the death of her children, J.J. Vallow and Tylee Ryan. In a newly-released probable cause affidavit obtained by East Idaho News, Idaho police reveal more about their investigation into Vallow and her husband, Chad Daybell, who was also arrested after the bodies of J.J. and Tylee were found in his backyard earlier this month.
Vallow has been charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence, while Daybell is facing two felony counts of conspiracy to commit destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence, as well as two counts of destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence.
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In the affidavit, investigators say Vallow told a friend she had convinced J.J.’s grandmother to watch him by telling her she had cancer. Friend Melanie Gibb told investigators Vallow told her “she had arranged for JJ to go live with his grandma, Kay Woodcock,” according to the East Idaho News. “Vallow further told Gibb she had told Kay that she had cancer in order to convince Kay Woodcock to take JJ. Vallow further elaborated to Gibb that she had traveled with JJ and handed him off to Kay in an airport.”
Woodcock would eventually be the one to report J.J. missing in November after the 7-year-old and his 16-year-old sister were last seen in September. Gibb revealed in a Dateline special earlier this month that Vallow began to refer to her children as “zombies” after learning about the concept from Daybell, a doomsday fiction writer. Gibb said that according to Daybell, a zombie was a person “whose mortal spirit has left their body and that their body is now the host of another spirit.” The new spirit in the “zombie” is a “dark spirit.” Gibb added in the Dateline special that the couple was convinced Utah would be hit so hard by an earthquake at the end of 2019 that people would be distracted from the disappearance of the children.
In the affidavit, detectives wrote of the “zombie” concept embraced so heartily by Vallow and Daybell, “While the ‘dark spirit’ inhabits the host body, the person’s true spirit goes into ‘limbo’ and is stuck there until the host body is physically killed.” Vallow reportedly told Gibb, “As such, death of the physical body is seen as the mechanism by which the body’s original spirit can be released from limbo.”
