Arizona authorities have completed their investigation into the death of Lori Vallow’s third husband and have concluded that he died of natural causes, EastIdahoNews.com reports.
Phoenix police announced they were taking another look at Joseph Ryan’s death after his sister, Annie Cushing, released a recording of Vallow discussing murderous thoughts toward Ryan during their contentious custody battle, as CrimeOnline previously reported. In the recording, Vallow says she turned back to her Mormon faith to keep from killing the father of teen Tylee Ryan, one of her two children who were later found dead and buried on new husband Chad Daybell’s property.
Vallow and Daybell have been charged in the children’s disappearance but not, as yet, with their deaths.
Ryan died of a heart attack in 2018, six months before the recording of Vallow was made. Cushing said that Vallow waited weeks to tell Ryan’s family that he had died, and said last fall that she felt saying her brother died of natural causes “is reckless.”
KSL reported at the time that Ryan’s remains were cremated, so it’s unclear how Phoenix police conducted their investigation.
Tylee Ryan and JJ Vallow, Vallow’s son with her fourth husband, Charles Vallow, were last seen in September 2019, prompting months of attempts by law enforcement to find them. Daybell and Vallow were uncooperative and eventually left for Hawaii, where Vallow was later arrested. When the children’s bodies were found on Daybell’s property last June, he, too, was arrested.
Charles Vallow was shot to death by Lori Vallow’s brother, Alex Cox, in July 2019, who died of natural causes in December. An investigation into Charles Vallow’s death remains open, as does one looking at the death of Chad Daybell’s wife, Tammy Daybell, in October 2019. Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow married just a few weeks after Tammy’s death.
Read more about the case here.
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[Featured image: Lori Vallow in court in Hawaii in February 2020. (Dennis Fujimoto,The Garden Island via AP, Pool)]
