BOISE, Idaho — Within a few hours, a garden of mementos grew outside the rural crime scene. Pinwheels, flowers and stuffed animals dotted a fence near where police found remains believed to belong to two children in a bizarre case that has captured attention around the world.
For police, the grisly discovery this week marked a significant break in a monthslong investigation into what happened to Joshua “JJ” Vallow, who was 7 when he vanished in September along with his 17-year-old sister Tylee Ryan.
For relatives, who said the remains belong to the children, their heartbreak was magnified.
For cluster of small Idaho towns, it was the denouement of one mystery and the start of another: Where are JJ and Tylee? Right here, and yet irretrievably gone. Why are they gone? That may never be fully answered.
“I never thought it would come to this — I didn’t think they were dead,” said Timanee Olsen, a specialty cookie baker who has closely followed the case and after hearing about the bodies, planned a vigil to mourn the kids who disappeared from Rexburg. “It’s just sparked a lot of sadness in our town.”
The children’s mother, Lori Vallow Daybell, has been in jail since February on felony child abandonment and other charges. Her new husband, Chad Daybell, was charged with concealing or destroying the bodies after police searched his rural property Tuesday. The remains have yet to be formally identified, but family members told news outlets that they belong to JJ and Tylee.
Kay and Larry Woodcock, JJ’s grandparents, worked for months to keep the search for kids in the limelight. With this week’s discovery, they have withdrawn to grieve.
“The family is not doing any interviews right now,” said Felicia Dewall, who is acting as their spokeswoman. “They’re asking everybody to kind of respect that.”
The complex case transfixed the public with its ties to the mysterious deaths of the Daybells’ former spouses and the couple’s doomsday beliefs.
It began with Lori Daybell’s brother shooting and killing her estranged husband, Charles Vallow, in suburban Phoenix last summer in what he asserted was self-defense. Vallow was seeking a divorce, saying Lori believed she had become a god-like figure who was responsible for ushering in the biblical end times.
Her brother, Alex Cox, died in December of an apparent blood clot in his lung.