‘LIE FOR ME’
Best friend of ‘cult mom’ Lori Vallow said she phoned her two months after kids vanished and told her to lie to cops
THE best friend of Lori Vallow has claimed the 'cult mom' phoned her two months after Vallow's kids vanished and told her to lie to cops.
Melanie Gibb, Vallow's best friend, told that Lori asked her to tell police that Joshua 'JJ' Vallow was with her – even though he was not.
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JJ, 8, and sister Tylee Ryan, 17, have been until November.
Vallow was arrested in January after she failed to .
– including two counts of desertion and nonsupport of her kids.
Gibb spoke out for the first time in an interview with East News after spending five months "in hiding."
An unsealed arrest warrant alleged that Vallow had asked her to lie about her childrens' whereabouts.
Gibb claimed that Vallow asked her to lie to cops two months after the kids were last seen.
“She asked me to tell the police that JJ was with me. I was going to drive to for Thanksgiving, and he was going to go with me,” Gibb told East Idaho News.
“She had made it sound like we had arranged it or something… she was going to come down there later and pick him up.
"It was a foreign idea... I can’t even tell you how uncomfortable [it was]," she added.
The alleged instructions came two days before Thanksgiving.
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Two months before, Gibb said Lori had said JJ was a zombie.
Vallow and husband Chad Daybell reportedly believe they are part of a "doomsday cult."
Lori reportedly believes she is “a god assigned to carry out the work of the 144,000 at Christ’s second coming in July 2020,” according to divorce documents filed by Lori's ex-husband, Charles before his death.
Lori and Gibb decided that JJ would stay with his grandmother, Kay Woodcock, in , the friend told East Idaho News.
Gibb went to , and Lori told her over the phone that she took JJ to the airport to meet his grandmother, she said.
'I JUST KNEW SOMETHING WAS WRONG'
Just before Thanksgiving, Gibb said she got a concerning call from Chad Daybell, Lori's husband.
Gibb claimed to East Idaho News that Daybell told her "don't pick up the phone" when cops call.
Daybell revealed that JJ was not in his grandmother.
"I just knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know," Gibb said. "I didn't understand."
Gibb said she then got a call from Vallow, who claimed Woodcock was "trying to kidnap" JJ.
Vallow then allegedly asked her to lie about JJ being with her.
“She said, ‘I told the police that you were at Frozen 2 with JJ.” Gibb said.
Gibb claimed Lori told her to use her cellphone and "take a picture of random kids running around to make it look like you [have] him with you.”
The best friend of the "cult mom" told East Idaho News she refused to do what Vallow asked, and spoke with police the day she allegedly asked her to lie.
Police have yet to locate the children.
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The kids were last seen in September – but were not reported missing until November when JJ's grandmother had cops do a welfare check.
Police are .
Lori's own mother, Janice Cox, told 48 Hours that the
ARREST
Vallow and Daybell – who married just two weeks after Chad's first wife died in October – were flouting around Hawaii as police tried to locate Tylee and JJ.
Idaho cops gave Vallow a week to present her children in front of authorities in January – but she did not do so.
Vallow was then arrested in and extradited to .
She faces two charges for desertion and nonsupport of children.
Vallow also faces charges for obstructing an officer, solicitation of a crime and contempt.
The "cult mom" and Daybell have had little to say about the whereabouts of the children.
Two of .
Lori is held in jail on a $1million bond.
MYSTERIOUS DEATHS
Several people close to Daybell and Vallow have .
The 1998 death of Vallow's sister, Stacey Lynne Cox Cope, is the most recently-emerged mysterious death in the family.
Vallow's third husband, Joseph Ryan, died of an apparent heart attack in 2018.
The following year, the "cult mom's" fourth husband, Charles Vallow, was shot dead by her brother, Alex Cox.
He claimed self-defense and was never charged in the death.
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Chad Daybell's former wife, Tammy Daybell, died of unknown causes in her sleep. Tammy died just two weeks before Vallow and Chad married.
Alex Cox was found collapsed on his bathroom floor in his Arizona home in December.
Police search the property of former gravedigger Chad Daybell
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