Tylee Ryan’s best friend speaks out, detectives reveal potential Yellowstone search in new ‘Deceived’ episode
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IDAHO FALLS — Ashlyn Rynd says she met her best friend Tylee Ryan when they were both young teenagers in Chandler, Arizona.
“Tylee was one of those people where — she just was able to see someone for who they were,” Rynd said. “Maybe it’s because of the things she’d been through, but she just came from a place of understanding.”
In the latest episode of “Deceived: The Daybell Story,” Rynd tells podcast host Nate Eaton about who Tylee Ryan was and what her life was like before her disappearance made national headlines. This is Rynd’s first interview about the Daybell murders.
In “Episode 3: Proof of Life,” Rynd recalls times when Tylee was “genuinely pissed off” about her mother, Lori Vallow’s, behavior. She says Tylee told her Lori was hanging out with friends a lot and that her step-father, Charles Vallow, was often out of town on business. That left Tylee responsible for caring for her younger brother, JJ Vallow.
Then in 2019, Rynd says her friend’s life was upended when Lori Vallow’s unreliability grew into instability. She says Tylee and her mother moved multiple times that year, to multiple states.
Tragedy struck in July, when Charles Vallow was shot and killed by Lori Vallow’s brother, Alex Cox, supposedly in self-defense. A month later, Tylee was forced to move again – to Rexburg, Idaho – and this time, Rynd says Tylee didn’t go willingly.
Episode 3 also delves into what was happening with the police investigation in March of 2020. Rexburg Police Lt. Ray Hermosillo and detective Sgt. Chuck Kunsaitis tell Eaton about the significance of “the Yellowstone photos” of Tylee and JJ, and the different theories investigators floated about where the kids might be.
The law enforcement officers also share details about the recorded jail phone calls between the inmate Lori Daybell and her unincarcerated husband, Chad Daybell, that spring.
“She’s in jail, and he is not,” Kunsaitis pointed out. “We’re thinking that at any given time, she could just say, ‘OK, here’s what happened.'”
“We knew everything he was telling her was bullcrap,” Hermosillo said.
The first three episodes of “Deceived: The Daybell Story” are available now on your favorite podcasting platform. For more information, visit the KSL Podcasts website.
If you want a deeper dive into the case, check out EastIdahoNews.com’s Daybell Case story archive.
If you want to listen to “Deceived: The Daybell Story” ad-free and get next week’s episode early, join the Deceived Insider Club; members get these benefits plus exclusive bonus content. In this week’s bonus episode, Nate’s wife, Erica Eaton, shares her perspective on how the tragic news story unfolded, how Nate’s coverage of it affected their family, and what she says has changed about Nate because of his work on the Daybell case.
