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SALT LAKE CITY — Newly released body camera video from police in Arizona showed Charles Vallow, the father of the missing Idaho children, warning officers about his wife’s strange behavior months before he died and the children went missing.
Officials said the body camera video provides a chilling glimpse of 62-year-old Charles Vallow, the fourth husband of 46-year-old Lori Vallow.
The January 31, 2019 video was recorded just days before he filed for divorce and months before he was shot and killed by his brother-in-law, 51-year-old Alex Cox.
Video showed officers responding to Charles’ 911 call requesting an emergency mental health petition for Lori Vallow.
In the video, Charles told officers he had just returned to Arizona from a business trip and claimed Lori took his truck from the airport, emptied their bank account, locked him out of their house, and stopped answering his calls.
He told them Lori said she didn’t want anything to do with the children and he was afraid she would flee with 7-year-old JJ Vallow and 17-year-old Tylee Ryan, as she had threatened to destroy him.
“She has lost her mind, I don’t know how else to say it,” he told officers. “We’re LDS (Latter-day Saints). She thinks she’s a resurrected being and a god. She threatened to murder me, kill me.”
The video also showed officers as they helped Charles find a way into the empty home. They told him to file a stolen vehicle report for his truck but said there was nothing they could do, saying there wasn’t evidence that Lori had committed a crime or that the children were in danger.
She has lost her mind, I don’t know how else to say it.
–Charles Vallow
Charles died in July. The investigation into his death was ongoing.
The children were last seen in September. Vallow married 51-year-old Chad Daybell in November, shortly after the suspicious death of his own wife, 49-year-old Tammy Daybell. The investigation into her death is also ongoing.
Alex Cox died in December. Authorities said autopsy results show he died of natural causes.
Lori Vallow is expected back in a Rexburg, Idaho, court July 9-10 to face charges related to her missing children.
