JJ Vallow's birth mom made a heart-wrenching plea for answers for her murdered son just hours before she died from heart complications, a friend has said.
Mandy Leger passed away in Lake Charles, Louisiana, on June 15, 2022, from natural causes brought on by hypertensive heart disease, a coroner's report obtained by The U.S. Sun showed.
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Leger was the biological mother of Joshua "JJ" Vallow, 7, who was found buried in a shallow grave in Rexburg, Idaho, on June 9, 2020, near the dismembered remains of his older sister Tylee Ryan, 16.
JJ's adoptive mom, Lori Vallow, and her doomsday author fifth husband, Chad Daybell, are accused of killing the two children and others as part of a depraved plot fueled by their bizarre religious beliefs.
Leger's death came almost exactly two years after JJ's remains were found.
The night before she died, Leger had made a defiant vow to a friend in a text message, voicing determination to get to the bottom of what happened to her biological son.
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"She was completely devastated [when JJ was found dead]," the friend told The U.S. Sun.
"I spoke to her the night before she died, and at that point, she just wanted to find out the truth of how [JJ] ended up being murdered - she wanted to know that more than anything - and how he ended up being put in that dysfunctional environment, to begin with.
"She was in a lot of pain," they added.
"She had so much guilt [...] but her belief system was that one day she'd be able to be with her son again, and I think she took comfort in that."
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TAKING A TOLL
Born Canaan Trahan in May 2012, JJ was adopted by Lori and Charles Vallow - JJ's uncle - in 2013, shortly before his first birthday, and his name was later changed to Joshua Jaxton Vallow.
Leger and JJ's biological father, Todd Trahan, suffered from substance abuse issues and JJ was born addicted to drugs.
Todd's parents, Kay and Larry Woodcock, temporarily fostered the boy as a baby before Charles and Lori assumed full custody to raise him as their own in Arizona.
Sources familiar with the matter told The U.S. Sun that Leger's dad and step-mom requested to foster JJ in the hope of keeping him in Louisiana but were denied by local Child Protection Services (CPS) officials.
Todd's father was also unsuccessful in his attempts to foster the boy.
Leger reportedly had visitation rights for the first six months of JJ's life before she relapsed and was ordered to go to rehab in order to regain access to her son, one source said.
Before she could complete the program, JJ's adoption to the Vallow family had already been finalized, they claimed.
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"She was doing everything she could to have a relationship with that baby," the source said.
"She was fully convicted that if she worked on herself, then one day she would be able to have a relationship with him, but she never got that chance."
Losing custody of her son took a significant toll on Mandy, friends said.
When the seven-year-old - who was autistic - was reported missing by Kay Woodcock in November 2019, weeks after he was last seen alive, Mandy was seeking advice on how she could get JJ back.
By this time, investigators believe JJ was already dead.
He was last seen sleeping in the arms of his uncle, Lori's brother Alex Cox, in Idaho on September 22.
Lori contacted JJ's specialist elementary school the following day, informing administrators that the young boy would not be returning and that she'd now be homeschooling him instead.
All traces of JJ vanished therein.
His sister Tylee had also vanished without a trace days earlier, having last been seen during a family vacation to Yellowstone National Park on September 8.
Lori refused several law enforcement orders to produce the children to officials.
At one stage, she fled to Hawaii with Daybell to get married and there was no sign of either of her children at the ceremony.
The wedding also took place just weeks after Daybell's wife of 30 years Tammy had died suddenly in her sleep - a death police first deemed natural but now believe to have been caused by asphyxiation.
Charles Vallow, meanwhile, had been shot dead by Alex Cox in July 2019. Cox claimed self-defense and died that December by causes deemed to be natural.
Lori and Chad were officially designated persons of interest in the disappearance of both JJ and Tylee the same month, with investigators believing the children's lives to be in danger due to Lori's lack of compliance with their ongoing investigation to find them.
On January 25, 2020, Lori was issued an ultimatum by police: She had five days to produce JJ and Tylee to authorities, otherwise, she'd be arrested.
By the time the deadline came around on January 30, Lori had failed to comply with the order. She was arrested in Hawaii on February 20 and held on a $5million bond.
'SO MUCH GUILT'
Even while incarcerated, Lori refused to disclose where the children were, offering a series of excuses, including a claim they were staying with a "friend" in Arizona whom she failed to identify.
A horrific discovery would eventually be made on June 9, 2020, after authorities served a search warrant at the Rexburg home of Chad Daybell.
Near a pet cemetery of property grounds, investigators found JJ's decomposed remains buried in a shallow grave.
The boy's body was found bound in tape and plastic bags. He was also still wearing a pair of red pajamas and a nighttime diaper, authorities told a courtroom during Lori's trial earlier this week.
Tylee's remains were found close by. The teenager had been dismembered and burned.
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Kay Woodcock previously described to The U.S. Sun how the discovery of JJ's remains was, for her, a "waking nightmare" that left her emotionally scarred.
For Mandy, the news of her son's horrific death cut just as deeply.
One source described her as being "completely devastated" by the discovery.
A second suggested that her sudden death at the age of 46 was likely a direct cause of all the anguish and stress she endured losing JJ.
"She beat herself up over it all so much, it really took a toll," another source said.
CULT MOM ON TRIAL
Lori Vallow is currently on trial for first-degree murder, conspiracy, and grand theft charges in connection with the deaths of JJ and Tylee.
She is also charged with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in the death of Chad's first wife Tammy as well as related financial crimes.
Prosecutors allege that Lori and Chad conspired with Alex Cox to murder the trio as part of their bizarre and fanatical doomsday beliefs.
Believed to be members of a radical cult, Lori and Chad apparently believed in a "rating system of light and dark” to judge the purity of the spirits of the people around them, according to prosecutors.
Over time, the pair apparently became convinced that JJ, Tylee, and Tammy had all been possessed by dark spirits, and the only way to rid them of their "demons" was to kill them.
Jurors were shown graphic photos of JJ's remains on Tuesday, showing the boy's decomposed face and arms bound with tape.
Detective Ray Hermosillo testified that investigators had honed in on an “area of concern” near a tree during the execution of their search warrant.
HARROWING TESTIMONY
Soon after they started digging, he said he was struck by a "strong odor" that he instantly recognized to be caused by bodily decomposition.
“They scraped away some more solid around the round object and it began to take the shape of - it looked like the crown of a head protruding from the dirt,” Hermosillo said.
Jurors were heard gasping throughout the harrowing testimony.
Tylee’s remains, meanwhile, were so badly burned that investigators were unable to determine a cause of death.
“We started to uncover just burnt flesh, charred bone, the smell was again of a decomposing body," added the detective of Tylee's remains, which had been dismembered and dispersed around the ground.
"We had to take turns digging because the smell was so bad. We could only dig for a couple of minutes.
"We uncovered bits and pieces of Tylee - who we assumed was Tylee," he added.
“The best I can describe was just blobs of flesh that were falling apart [...] just burnt flesh, what appeared to be put in a green bucket. The bucket was melted so it was kind of deformed.”
Lori's attorney asked the judge if she could be excused from the courtroom while the graphic testimony was shared and images of their remains shown.
The request was swiftly denied.
Lori's trial is expected to last for eight weeks.
Chad Daybell is also charged with the murders of JJ, Tylee, and Tammy.
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The couple had been due to stand trial together but the two cases were severed by a judge last month.
Chad's trial was postponed as a result, and a new trial date has not yet been set.
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