BOISE, Idaho — Editor's Note: The video above is part of a Dateline interview with Chad Daybell's old missionary friend, who blames Lori Vallow's extreme religious beliefs for her children going missing.
Lori Vallow, the mother at the center of the disappearance of two Rexburg kids, has eluded reporters' questions about where 7-year-old JJ Vallow and 17-year-old Tylee Ryan are, all while staying in Hawaii with her new husband, Chad Daybell.
Without her or Chad Daybell producing the missing kids and answering questions, we've dug through years of Lori's past to figure out how we got to this point. We've combed through divorce papers, 911 calls, and police reports to chart the strange path that Lori Vallow has left in her wake.
Starting in February of 2019, Charles Vallow filed for divorce from Lori Vallow and requested full custody of JJ. The court filing claims that Lori had "become infatuated and at times obsessive about near-death experiences and spiritual visions."
Lori also allegedly told Charles that "she is sealed (eternally married) to the ancient Book of Mormon prophet Moroni and that she has lived numerous lives on numerous planets prior to this current life."
Weeks before the divorce filing, Charles said Lori told him that "she is a translated being who cannot taste death sent by God to lead the 144,000 into the Millennium."
The divorce documents allege that Lori believed that Jesus Christ's second coming would happen in July 2020 and only 144,000 would live through it. Charles also claimed that Lori threatened to kill him if he got in the way of her mission.
Annie Cushing, the aunt of Tylee, told KSL-TV that Lori had become obsessed with the end of days.
“There was one time where she was talking about it and she says, sometimes, I think it would be better just to get put my kids in a car and go off the side of a cliff," Cushing said.
"I mean imagine what you would do if you had a god speak to you would start feeling a little bit empowered and it looks like that is exactly what happened," Chad Daybell's old missionary friend told Dateline.
A few months later, Charles Vallow was killed by Lori's brother, Alex Cox. When police arrived at the scene, they found Charles dead with two gunshot wounds to his chest.
Cox told police that he shot Charles in self-defense when Charles attacked him with a baseball bat. Detectives involved in the investigation told Dateline NBC that, "it definitely didn't appear that he was struck with an extreme amount of force with a baseball bat, Charles was a very physically fit man and actually a former college ballplayer, so it didn't appear that it was a huge strike to the head."
KTVB obtained the police report of the shooting, which details what Lori and Alex Cox told police how the shooting happened.
Hours after Charles' death, Lori threw a pool party and did not seem distraught that her estranged husband was just killed, according to investigators.
Charles' death would be the first of three deaths of people that were part of Lori's personal life.
On October 2, 2019, Brandon Boudreaux, the ex-husband of Lori's niece, Melani, called 911 to report that someone shot at his Telsa in a drive-by shooting.
The shooting happened in Gilbert, Ariz., at a home that Boudreaux recently moved into.
In the 911 call, Boudreaux told dispatchers that he didn't see who shot at him, but he later told a private investigator that he believes that it was Alex Cox that attempted to kill him.
That same month, Chad Daybell's ex-wife, Tammy Daybell suddenly died in her sleep. The cause of death is still undetermined as the Fremont County coroner did not perform an autopsy on the 49-year-old. The official cause of death could take up to a year to determine because the county coroner had to exhume her body in December.
Alex Cox also suddenly died in December and his cause of death is still under investigation. On Dec. 12, someone claiming to be the son of Cox's girlfriend called 911 and KTVB obtained the full 911 call and you listen to it below.
KTVB is working to gather more information on the whereabouts of JJ Vallow and Tylee Ryan, who were last seen in September, and we will report whatever verified details that we confirm.
As of now, Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell have not been charged with anything as police can only charge them with misdemeanor contempt of court for ignoring a court order to produce their children, which is not enough to extradite them to Idaho from Hawaii.
Watch more on the search for Lori Vallow's missing Idaho kids:
See all of the latest coverage of the missing Rexburg kids in our YouTube playlist:
