Lori Vallow Daybell’s mother and sister will speak on CBS News’ “48 Hours” program this Saturday.
The episode — titled “The Missing Children of Lori Vallow Daybell’” — will be the first television interview for Lori Vallow’s mother and daughter, per CBS.
Vallow’s mother, Janis Cox, and her sister, Summer Shiflet, will defend Lori Vallow in the episode, according to a news release from CBS News.
“She would never harm her children. And I know her,” Cox said, according to the press release.
Shiflet added, “I don’t know all of her reasons for doing what she’s doing. But I know she has … has the reasons.”
The episode airs on Saturday, May 16, at 10 p.m. EDT (8 p.m. MDT) on CBS.
It will focus on the story of Lori Vallow Daybell, who currently sits in an Idaho jail on charges of desertion and nonsupport. Her two children — Tylee Ryan and Joshua “JJ” Vallow — went missing in September 2019. Investigators have said Tylee Ryan was last seen in Yellowstone National Park on Sept. 8. Officials said Joshua Vallow disappeared on Sept. 23.
The case has been connected to suspicious deaths and allegations of cultlike religious beliefs, according to the The Associated Press.
Her story has made national headlines. Dateline NBC recently ran a special program on the case.
“Looking at these cases separately, you begin to see there is a common denominator,” said Morgan Loew, a journalist and CBS News consultant, in a news release sent to the Deseret News. “And that common denominator is Lori Vallow. She has a dead husband … she has two missing children. She has a new husband who has a dead wife. … She is the factor that connects all of these separate cases together.”
As I reported earlier this week, Cox told CBS News that she spoke with “JJ” Vallow days after he reportedly disappeared.
“I talked to him,” she said. “He just takes the phone, you know, and he knows — you know, he knows who we are.”
“She’s invested her whole life in those children,” she told CBS News. “So we know there’s another whole side to this. We don’t know what it is. But we know her.”
She added, “I’m positive beyond any doubt that she hasn’t harmed those kids.”