Lori Vallow Update: Idaho Attorney General Investigating Possible Connection To Tammy Daybell's Death

Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden said his office would begin investigating Lori Vallow, the mother of missing siblings Joshua Vallow and Tylee Ryan, over her alleged connection to the death of her husband’s first wife, Tammy Daybell.

Wasden’s office was approached by Fremont County prosecutor Marcia Murdoch about investigating Vallow’s possible involvement in Daybell’s death. Murdoch said the attorney general's office first turned down her office’s request over “a lack of resources” to justify possible conspiracy, attempted murder, and murder charges.

Scott Graf, a spokesman for the attorney general's office, said that after the initial request, it wasn’t clear if the office could take on the investigation based on current and upcoming cases. Graf said the office asked Murdoch if other county prosecutors could take over the case.

Murdoch said no other prosecutors were able to take on the case and filed another request with Wasden’s office on April 7.

“I am again requesting that the AG’s office take over this case because my office does not have the resources or the experience to handle the case,” Murdoch wrote in a letter acquired by the Associated Press. “We would be willing to assist in any way to help the AG’s office, as needed at your request and at your discretion.”

It’s the latest development in what has been a strange case surrounding the deaths of Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell’s previous spouses and the disappearance of their two children.

In the case of Tammy Daybell, initial reports said she had died in her sleep on Oct. 19, 2019. However, police decided to look closer into her death after Chad Daybell married Lori Vallow nearly two weeks after Tammy Daybell’s death. Her body was then exhumed in December as part of the investigation, though police did not release the results of the autopsy and toxicology tests.

It was around this time that Joshua Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 17, were reported missing by police after conducting welfare checks on behalf of the siblings’ relatives. Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow first told police in Rexburg, Idaho, that the two were staying with family in Arizona, which was later discovered to be false. When police returned, the two had left abruptly and left no indication as to where they were going.

The couple was discovered living in a gated community in Hawaii, where police observed their movements.

Lori Vallow was later arrested for violating a court order to produce her children to the Rexburg court. She was charged with deserting or abandoning her children and obstruction and is being held on $1 million bail.