Mom of Missing Kids Pleads the 5th

Lori Vallow doesn't want to be questioned en route to Idaho, lawyer warns
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 5, 2020 1:32 PM CST
Mom of Missing Kids Pleads the 5th
Lori Vallow appears in court in Lihue, Hawaii on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2020.   (Dennis FujimotoThe Garden Island via AP, Pool)

Lori Vallow, the mother of two Idaho children missing since September, was extradited from Hawaii to Idaho on a red-eye flight arriving Thursday, CBS News reports. On Wednesday, before that flight took off, Vallow invoked her fifth amendment right against self-incrimination, the Daily Beast reports. Her lawyer said Vallow should not be questioned on the trip to Idaho; the judge responded that once Vallow is in the custody of Idaho officials, the Hawaii court has no jurisdiction. "Yes, but I want to make a record of that so her Idaho attorney can suppress any statements they may try to elicit," Vallow's attorney said. An Idaho team was in Hawaii to take Vallow back to Idaho, where she will appear before a judge Friday.

She is facing charges including two counts of felony abandonment in the disappearance of her children Tylee Ryan, 17, and Joshua "JJ" Vallow, 7. Earlier this week the children's stepfather, Vallow's fifth husband Chad Daybell, insisted to ABC News that "the kids are safe." That statement came days after Daybell spoke publicly on the case for the first time last week; during that initial statement, he had said he "just can't comment" on where the children were or how they were doing. Vallow's attorney has said in the past that the reason she failed to produce them when a court ordered her to do so was fears they would be put into foster care. Vallow's adult niece has also been questioned in the convoluted case, and attorneys for her say she's now cooperating with FBI investigators and has turned over her computer. (The case also involves doomsday prophesies and at least three odd deaths.)

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