New evidence in “doomsday” cult mom Lori Vallow’s case shows she allegedly “carefully” avoided communicating over text message and made a number of suspiciously timed travel arrangements, according to reports.
The text messages and photos — pulled from Vallow’s iCloud account and contained in 2,500 emails recently released by the Chandler Police Department in Arizona — shine a new light on the extent of the probe involving four murders and spanning three states.
The evidence includes never-before-seen snaps of Vallow’s kids, 7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow and 16-year-old Tylee Ryan, photos of rifle ammunition taken right around the time the children went missing and screenshots of conveniently timed travel reservations, East Idaho News reported.
Vallow and her husband Chad Daybell are accused of murdering the two kids, who were last seen alive in September 2019, and burying their mutilated remains in a makeshift pet cemetery in Daybell’s Idaho backyard.
A photo of little Joshua taken on Sept. 22, 2019 — the last day cops say he was seen alive — shows him sitting on a couch while wearing a set of red pajamas with the words “Sleepy Hero.” When the boy’s butchered body was discovered almost a year later, investigators said he was wearing red pajamas, the outlet reported.
The photos of the ammunition, contained in an email a Chandler detective sent to the FBI, were taken on Sept. 23, 2019, at The Gun Shop in Idaho Falls, about 25 miles south of where the couple lived in Rexburg.
The detective wrote in the email the snaps were “worth looking into ASAP,” Fox News reported.
The detective also noted there were screenshots taken from the mom’s phone that showed reservations for plane tickets, hotels and car rentals that were made close to the death of Daybell’s former wife Tammy Daybell, whom the couple is accused of murdering.
The day after Tammy Daybell was mysteriously found dead in her bed on Oct. 19, 2019, from what was originally considered to be “natural causes,” Vallow booked a flight from Phoenix, Arizona, to Idaho.
“One additional irony is the fact that Lori booked a flight from Phx [Phoenix] to Idaho the day after Tammy died,” the Arizona detective told the FBI in an email, according to Fox News.
Vallow also booked a ticket out of Idaho to Phoenix on Oct. 8, 2019, the day before cops say Tammy Daybell reported being shot at outside her Idaho home. Cops presume Vallow’s brother Alex Cox was the masked gunman she wrote about in a Facebook post describing the bizarre encounter.
Additional evidence recovered from the file dump includes an audio recording on Vallow’s phone titled “Lori’s testimony” where she “is self-prophesying and [saying] everything she does is because her Heavenly Father tells her,” East Idaho News reported.
There’s also an email from Vallow’s sister-in-law from Aug. 8, 2019, in which she says she believes Cox and Vallow killed the mom’s ex-husband Charles Vallow. Charles Vallow was shot to death by Cox about a month before in what was originally described as self-defense during a confrontation. Vallow is now facing an additional conspiracy to commit murder charge in Arizona in connection with the death.
The email from the sister-in-law further claims Cox abandoned two of Vallow’s dogs in the desert because she didn’t want them and also shot and killed another relative’s dog when they didn’t want it.
One of the Arizona investigators also raised concerns in emails about how Vallow was communicating and her apparent efforts to not state anything in writing over text message, the outlet reported.
“It does not appear that Lori is communicating with anyone using text messages,” the email states.
“She did have text content on the cloud but she seems careful to not discuss anything using text and will ask people to call her.”
The released files also include hundreds of screenshots taken from “Another Voice of Warning” — an online doomsday forum that discusses emergency preparedness and prophecies, dreams and visions where Chad Daybell was a frequent contributor.
Vallow was declared mentally unfit for her murder trial in May and criminal proceedings have been temporarily halted while she undergoes treatment.
Meanwhile, proceedings against Daybell are continuing with a trial date set for November.