The eldest son of the so-called Idaho ‘cult mom’ Lori Vallow spoke out on the Dr Phil Show on Thursday, along with other concerned relatives, saying that she was fixated on the end of the world before her two youngest children vanished last fall.
Vallow, 46, was arrested in Kauai, Hawaii, last week on two felony counts of child abandonment after failing to comply with an order to produce her 17-year-old daughter Tylee Ryan and her seven-year-old adopted son Joshua ‘JJ’ Vallow by January 20.
On Wednesday, she appeared in court in a failed bid to get her $5million bail reduced to $10,000 pending her extradition to Idaho.
Colby Ryan (left), Lori Vallow’s eldest son, appeared on the Dr Phil Show Thursday to talk about his missing siblings, saying that his mother has long been fixated on the end times. Vallow, 46, is pictured right during a court appearance in Hawaii this week.
Vallow’s 17-year-old daughter, Tylee Ryan, and seven-year-old adopted son, JJ Vallow, have not been seen since September 2019
Vallow’s eldest son, Colby Ryan, this week spoke to Dr Phil McGraw on his syndicated daytime talk show, saying that his mother has long been obsessed with the idea of a doomsday.
‘My mom has always talked about the end of the world or the second coming,’ Ryan said, adding that it now appears that Lori and her new husband, Chad Daybell, have cut ties to everyone in their lives.
‘I’m mad that my entire family is a shattered vase, and it just seems that she doesn’t care about anything,’ he said of his mother.
Ryan, who is married with a child of his own, said he first learned of his half-siblings’ disappearance a day before Thanksgiving, when two police detectives appeared at his home asking about the whereabouts of Tylee and JJ.
Colby (left) said since late summer 2019, he had communicated with Tylee via text messages
In September, Colby said he became alarmed when he began noticing changes in his sister’s messages to him (text messages exchange pictured above)
Annie Cushing, the sister of Lori’s late third husband, said Vallow once told her ‘it would be better to put her kids in the car and go over the side of a cliff’
‘Immediately, it was panic,’ he recalled.’ I called my mom and asked her why the detectives were looking for the kids. and she basically just said, “I got it, I’ll take care of it. I love you. Don’t worry about it.” That was the last time I spoke with my mom.’
Ryan said he last saw his mother three months prior, on August 30, when she broke the news to him that she and the younger children were moving away, but would not say where.
He continued communicating with Tylee via text message and FaceTime, but he said after August 30, 2019, he became alarmed when he began noticing changes in his sister’s replies and her purported refusal to speak over the phone with him.
Ryan shared one text message exchange with Tylee from September 2019, in which he repeatedly expressed concern for her well-being and asked her to call him, but she insisted she’s been ‘busy’ and ‘tired,’ and brushed him off.
Vallow’s former sister-in-law, Annie Cushing, echoed some of Colby’s concerns regarding Lori’s purported ‘fixation’ on the end times.
Cushing said that during a visit in 2018, after the sudden passing of her brother, Lori’s third husband Joseph Ryan, her sister-in-law was talking to her about the end of the world and remarked that sometimes she thinks ‘it would be better to put her kids in the car and go over the side of a cliff.’
She said when Lori saw a ‘look of horror’ on her face, she reassured her that she was only kidding and that she would never hurt her children.
‘The chances of Tylee and JJ being alive are extremely remote,’ Cushing said. ‘Nothing that she’s doing is in any way indicative of a parent who just has her children safely tucked away.’
JJ’s grandfather, Larry Woodcock, and his wife – the parents of Lori’s fourth husband Charles Vallow who was shot dead by her own brother – also appeared on the show and addressed her current husband, Chad Daybell, telling him: ‘Look in my eyes. Man up, son. It is time for you to have a talk with your wife and end this. Find those kids!’
Daybell, a 51-year-old author of doomsday books, was last spotted on Wednesday directing a furniture truck outside the Princeville, Kauai, apartment he and Vallow had been renting before her arrest.
He was seen helping workers move large furniture into the truck in photos obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com.
It’s not immediately clear when Vallow will be taken to Idaho to face charges.
Daybell has not been arrested or charged with any crime.
Police say that Vallow and Daybell have repeatedly lied about the children’s whereabouts and that the kids may be in danger.
Chad Daybell, Lori’s fifth husband, was seen this week leaving jail in Hawaii after paying her an unexpected visit (left) and shopping at a supermarket (right)
Tammy Daybell, who died mysteriously in her sleep in Idaho on October 19, 2019, is seen with her husband Chad Daybell in her Facebook photos
Meanwhile in Idaho, Madison County prosecutors filed several subpoenas on Tuesday calling upon Lori and Chad Daybell’s landlord of their Princeville condo, Kauai Beach Resort and Kennedy Elementary in Rexburg, to provide documents.
On Tuesday. Daybell made a surprise visit to the jail where Vallow is being held, DailyMailTV’s exclusive photos revealed Wednesday.
Earlier this week it was revealed Daybell and his former wife Tammy, who died under mysterious circumstances, were more than $350,000 in debt and filed for bankruptcy in 2008.
The probe into JJ and Tylee’s disappearance began in November when Idaho police tried to conduct a welfare check on JJ, who is adopted and has special needs.
Vallow and Daybell claimed JJ was staying with a family friend in Arizona, which Rexburg police said was a lie.
Vallow, also known as Lori Daybell, is also accused of disobeying a court order that required her to bring her children to Idaho authorities last month.
The tangled case includes investigations into three deaths. Vallow’s estranged husband, Charles Vallow, was shot and killed in Phoenix last July by her brother, Alex Cox. Then Cox, who claimed the shooting was in self-defense, died of unknown causes in December.
Larry Woodcock, the father of Lori’s slain fourth husband, Charles Vallow, addressed Daybell directly, asking him to talk to his wife and ‘end this’
Vallow moved her family to Idaho in late August. In October, Chad Daybell’s wife, Tammy Daybell, died of what her obituary said was natural causes. When Daybell married Vallow roughly two weeks after Tammy’s death, law enforcement became suspicious and had her remains exhumed.
Test results on Daybell’s remains and toxicology results for Cox have not yet been released.
Vallow reportedly believes she is ‘a god assigned to carry out the work of the 144,000 at Christ’s second coming in July 2020,’ according to divorce documents Charles Vallow filed before his death.
Daybell has written several apocalyptic novels based loosely on the theology of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Both he and Vallow were involved in a group that promotes preparing for the biblical end times.
Rexburg police questioned Daybell and Vallow about the missing children in late November, and when detectives returned the next day for a follow-up interview they discovered the couple had left town.
In December, Idaho authorities asked police on Kauai for help finding the couple. On Jan. 26, Kauai police served a search warrant on a vehicle and condo the couple were renting in the resort town of Princeville.