Following a bizarre two-year investigation, Lori Vallow and her husband Chad Daybell are facing murder charges in the deaths of her two children Tylee Ryan, 17, and Joshua “JJ” Vallow, 7.

JJ’s grandparents initially reported the boy and his sister missing in 2019. The children stopped showing up to school in September of that same year. When family members alerted the police about their concerns, Vallow claimed her children were staying with family friends in Arizona.

When Vallow was initially arrested in February 2020, she was in Hawaii on her honeymoon with Daybell and was not charged in connection with the death of her children. Instead, she faced two counts of felony desertion of a child and some misdemeanors.

Daybell was later arrested in June 2020 for conspiracy to commit alteration, destruction, or concealment of evidence.

Vallow and Daybell, who espoused doomsday religious beliefs, have now been charged with first-degree murder for the deaths of her two kids. The remains of Tylee and JJ were found on Daybell’s Idaho property.

Additionally, the couple faces charges of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in the death of Daybell’s ex-wife, Tammy. The body of the 49-year-old was found in her home in October 2019. Although it was initially suspected that she died of natural causes, police late reopened the investigation.

“We have cause to believe that the Daybells willfully and knowingly conspired to commit murder of three innocent people,” Lindsey Blake, the Fremont County prosecutor, said in a statement.

Vallow and Daybell also face charges for Social Security fraud and insurance fraud. The couple is been accused of cashing checks that were intended for Vallow’s children.

Daybell has also been accused of signing paperwork that maxed out Tammy’s life insurance policy.

Authorities believed the couple worked with Vallow’s brother, Alex Cox, to carry out the murders. Cox died a mysterious death in 2019 during the early days of the investigation.

crime scene
This is a representational image showing a crime scene tape in Sunset Valley, Texas, on March 20, 2018. Getty Images/Scott Olson
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