The Gravedigger’s Wife l 20/20 l PART 1

[Music] when you imagine what a tropical island would look like and what it would feel like kauai is exactly that it's a pretty amazing place the wedding between laurie and chad davao was in kauai that's right were you invited no i don't think anybody was there except for the two of them and whoever performed the services the photos are great but the one thing you notice about them is it's only the bride and groom [Music] seven-year-old son jj is not there neither his 16 year old daughter tylee not at the wedding not in hawaii not staying with friends or family say hi cops are looking high and low but they can't find him anywhere and yet the wedding goes on the story and what's happening at this wedding is incredibly dark the urgent search for those missing idaho siblings officials say the kids have not been seen since september good morning tom this is really a mysterious one the story goes national number one because nobody's seen these kids in weeks what really drives the story is that the mom is completely silent which bothers people it's very bizarre why wouldn't she just tell people where they are why keep it secret chad lori you tell me where your kids are would you tell me what happened to jj can you tell me where tyler is just to see her utter disregard you know for people's questions with lori silent we reached out to her family to see if they could shed any light on her behavior or the whereabouts of her kids they agreed to sit down with us early on in the investigation at the time they painted a radically different picture than the one the public was seeing well i'm janice cox and i'm lord's mother and i am very much appreciative of an opportunity to say what i know to be true about lori she's beautiful she's sweet she's kind she's generous to a fault lori and summer both took dance and they both ended up being cheerleaders they both loved sports they both played on the softball team that i coached our church softball team for three years lori was the pitcher and would never let me take her out it was really sad she became a hair stylist because she loves help making people look more beautiful but the most important thing to me is the kind of mother she is the way she dedicated herself to her children i realize that it looks bad but i know lori very well and i know she would not harm her children or anyone's children i know lori and i know lori's done everything she can to protect her kids when i first started talking to her the first thing she said to me was mom you know me you know i'm taking care of my kids so the way the family describes it they describe this as a very close-knit unit but there is something really weird they weren't at the wedding because they didn't even know there was a wedding i don't think i knew that lori married chad dabell until i saw it on tv to fully understand lori i think it helps to go back in time to see how our past relationships may have played a role in her current situation in the late 1980s lori is a high school cheerleader in rialto california she's popular she's smart she comes from a devout mormon in 1992 she marries her high school sweetheart he wasn't my favorite and we didn't have close relationship she left home when she was 18 and we asked lori to wait a year but they just went off and decided to do their own thing and got married and so we didn't go to the wedding there was soon a second marriage and it's out of this marriage laurie's first child colby is born we weren't in favor of him even though he was kobe's father hoping the third time is the charm lori marries again this time to joseph ryan you know they caught people's attention because they were beautiful they were magnanimous they were both extroverts they were you know just kind of larger than life one reason lori had wanted to get married was to have another baby so she got pregnant with tyler right away and she was really excited about having tylie it's during this time lori makes an appearance on the game show wheel of fortune gopher doc isaac and captain stewbing yeah and in that clip lori describes married life in glowing terms i have a wonderful husband joseph at home who is watching our two beautiful children colby who's seven and ty lee who is one yeah what do you guys like to do for fun we like to play all kinds of sports on our three acres okay it sounds like you have a nice life there we do congratulations [Applause] [Music] lori does not lack for confidence she was old enough to get up on stage at a texas beauty powder she is mrs hayes county her husband's name is joseph they've been married for three and a half years and they have two children in 2004 lori was recruited to do the pageant and she worked really hard to get a perfect shape i don't know really what prompted her to want to do the pageant other than it gave her kind of an outlet and she thought that might help her marriage at the time lori does have stage presence she's very poised she did everything beautifully tell us who you are what they should take being a good mom is very important to me and a good wife and a good worker and being all those things together is not easy so i'm basically a ticking time bomb joseph ryan appears to have been a bit of a ticking time bomb himself i did witness be physically abusive toward colby he was physically abusive from the very get-go and that wheel of fortune clip we saw lorien becomes a lot more interesting because we're able to see how she can portray this illusion of happiness even when her marriage is falling apart the marriage implodes under allegations that joe ryan abused both children those allegations were investigated but never substantiated this custody battle drags on for years enter alex cox laurie's brother like no other i found out christmas is wrong jesus was not born in bethlehem he was born in el salvador alex cox has showbiz aspirations doing cartoon voiceovers as well as comedy on stage i haven't got a flickazine rabbit's license he will play a pivotal role in lori's life alex is a key piece to a puzzle that will take investigators months to put together i'm alex and i'm gonna be looney towns tell me what your impressions of alex were when you met him my impressions of alex was that um he was a little off and lacked social skills or just maybe didn't really connect with people i think that's all what did he tell you about lori's husband joseph ryan tyley's dad he had told me that there had been some allegations of abuse and that he kind of took it upon himself to protect tyler and colby and that he had attempted to take joe's life alex got into it with joe ryan in a parking lot and assaulted ryan with a taser in the heart alex winds up serving time for aggravated assault it's another failed marriage for lori enter charles valo a man who will eventually become husband number four it's interesting to know lori's early marriages didn't last very long but it didn't sour her on the institution of marriage either i don't know why lori's been married so many times i think she has always worn her heart on her sleeve she thinks that she is trying to help people when she marries them can charles make lori happy can anyone make this mother of two happy it's like the old adage mama ain't happy nobody's happy hi everyone george stephanopoulos here thanks for checking out the abc news youtube channel if you'd like to get more videos show highlights and watch live event coverage click on the right over here to subscribe to our channel and don't forget to download the abc news app for breaking news alerts thanks for watching

Channel: ABC News

Views: 395,199

Rating: 4.809196 out of 5

Keywords: 2020, the, gravediggers, wife, lori, vallow, missing, children, dead, Chad, Daybell, Hawaii, apocalypse, alex, cox, JJ, Vallow, Tylee, Ryan, Brandon, Boudreaux, Idaho, p_cmsid=2494279, p_vid=news-76147090

Id: 15BQnNsobPI

Length: 9min 34sec (574 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 27 2021