BOISE, Idaho — The first two witnesses in the trial of Lori Vallow, aka Lori Vallow Daybell, gave sometimes emotional testimony about their family relationships, and how they changed in the months before two of Vallow's children, Joshua "JJ" Vallow and Tylee Ryan, disappeared. Lori Vallow is charged with murder and conspiracy in the children's deaths, and conspiracy in connection with the death of Tammy Daybell, the late wife of her current husband, Chad Daybell.
First on the stand Monday was Kay Woodcock, the biological grandmother of JJ Vallow and the sister of Lori Vallow Daybell's fourth husband, Charles Vallow.
Kay Woodcock said her son could not care for JJ, so she and her husband, Larry Woodcock, became his caregivers when he was still an infant. They were in line to adopt JJ, but she said her brother, Charles Vallow, and his wife at the time, Lori Vallow, came to them and asked to adopt JJ instead.
“She was a doting mom; she was engaged,” Woodcock said, adding that she and Lori Vallow were good friends.
Things changed in early 2019, when Charles and Lori Vallow split up. Kay Woodcock said when she went down to Arizona to help, neither she nor Charles Vallow knew where Lori was. Charles Vallow was later shot and killed by Alex Cox, Lori’s brother, in what Cox claimed was self defense.
Cameras are not allowed in the courtroom during the trial. Audio of Kay Woodcock's full testimony, more than one hour, is in the video below and also available through this link.
Kay Woodcock said at one point, Lori Vallow texted her about Charles’ life insurance policy at one point. Woodcock was the beneficiary of that policy. After that text, Kay Woodcock said she was barely able to talk to JJ, who was living with Lori Vallow. Woodcock said each FaceTime call was about 45 seconds. It “seemed like someone was holding the phone for him,” Woodcock said.
She said the last time she and her husband spoke to JJ over FaceTime, it lasted about 30 seconds. She said JJ told her, “Gotta go mama. Gotta go papa.”
When court recessed for lunch, Larry Woodcock spoke to reporters on the courthouse steps.
"It was all about 'Where are the kids? Where are the kids? Where are the kids?' Now, it's about justice," he said, recalling the search for answers that began in the fall of 2019, when JJ and Tylee disappeared.
After the court came back from a lunch break, Kay Woodcock testified that she signed into Charles Vallow’s email and Amazon accounts in November 2019, around the time Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell got married in Hawaii. Woodcock said browsing history from Oct. 2, 2019, showed wedding dresses, bathing suits and wedding rings. She said this “struck her” because Tammy Daybell, Chad Daybell’s late wife, died just 17 days later, on Oct. 19, 2019.
“I think it was divine intervention because of what I found when I logged on,” Kay Woodcock said.
After the defense cross-examination, mostly clarifying questions, Woodcock stepped down and the prosecution called Brandon Boudreaux, former husband of one of Lori Vallow's nieces, Melani Pawlowski. Boudreaux and Pawlowski divorced in July 2019, about two months before JJ Vallow and Tylee Ryan were killed.
Below is a partial family tree.
Boudreaux choked up on the stand as he recalled how his children would play with JJ and Tylee when they lived in Arizona.
"I watched her grow up," Boudreaux said, speaking about Tylee.
Boudreaux said Pawlowski began attending religious events with Lori Vallow, and had become focused on “the idea that the world could end soon.” The couple got into an argument about buying $2,000 worth of food for storage, he said. Boudreaux said their relationship escalated to the point where Pawlowski accused him of being gay because “God told her.” He also said Pawlowski believed Boudreaux hacked into Vallow’s computer.
Pawlowski later told Boudreaux that she didn’t want him speaking to Charles Vallow, even though the two were friends at the time, Boudreaux testified.
Boudreaux said on Oct. 2, 2019, someone pointed a gun at him from inside a Jeep and shot at his window, shattering it. He told police he recalled that Charles Vallow bought Tylee Ryan a Jeep that looked very similar to the one he saw the day of the shooting. Boudreaux said that because he had just moved into a new home, the only people who could have known his location and his routine were his neighbors and Melani Pawlowski.
At that time, the children were still considered missing. Their bodies were found in June 2020 on Chad Daybell's property near Rexburg. Boudreaux was called to identify JJ.
Audio of Boudreaux's testimony is in the window below and available through this link.
Prosecutors are expected to call more than 200 witnesses during the trial, which is expected to last about two months.
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