Eight months after 18-month-old twins Dallas and Tyson Shaw were found dead in their family’s home in Payette, Idaho, authorities say the case remains under active investigation, offering no new details on the cause or manner of death.
Payette Police Chief Gary Marshall confirmed to NBC Idaho affiliate KTVB last week that the deaths are still being investigated, but said “there is no new information that can be released.” Requests for public records submitted to the Payette Police Department and the Ada County Coroner’s Office have been denied, with officials citing the ongoing nature of the investigation.
To date, authorities have not released autopsy findings, toxicology results, or any official determination of how the twins died. It also remains unclear whether investigators continue to consider asphyxiation as a leading theory or whether other possible explanations are being examined.
The prolonged silence has drawn attention from legal observers. Kim Mack Rosenberg, general counsel for Children’s Health Defense (CHD), said most child death investigations are typically resolved more quickly, though extended probes are not unprecedented.
“It’s not unheard of for an investigation to continue for over eight months with no real updates,” Rosenberg said, adding that such delays are especially difficult in cases involving grieving families.
Dallas and Tyson were discovered unresponsive in a shared bed inside their family’s trailer on May 1, 2025. Police initially treated the case as a homicide, which officials later said is standard protocol when a death occurs under unknown circumstances.
On May 7, Chief Marshall said the deaths had not been “definitively” ruled homicides and that investigators were awaiting additional findings, including toxicology results.
The deaths occurred roughly one week after the twins received multiple vaccinations during a routine 18-month wellness visit.
According to their mother, Andrea Shaw, the children were given a flu shot, hepatitis A, and DTaP vaccines on April 23, 2025. She told CHD.TV in May that she and her mother-in-law had raised concerns about the flu vaccine due to a family history of adverse reactions, but said the pediatrician reassured them the children would be fine. The twins had previously received most recommended childhood immunizations, including their one-year shots.
Andrea Shaw said that within hours of the vaccinations, the toddlers became lethargic and unwell. By the following morning, she said their lips appeared blue and they struggled to move. She took both children to the emergency room and informed doctors that the twins had received multiple vaccines the previous day.
READ ALSO: New study links COVID-19 vaccines to multiple cancer types
According to Andrea, a physician told her the children could “very well be having a bad reaction to the vaccinations.” Hospital staff later discharged the twins after they were able to eat popsicles without vomiting. However, symptoms including diarrhea, vomiting and fatigue reportedly persisted over the next several days.
The twins’ father, Nathaniel Shaw, said he was shocked by the rapid decline in their condition. Within a day, he said, the children went from being “perfectly happy-go-lucky active babies” to “looking like they were dying.”
On the morning of May 1, Andrea said she found both children unresponsive and called emergency services. Police and paramedics responded, and the parents said investigators immediately treated them as suspects. Andrea and Nathaniel told CHD.TV they were questioned under the assumption that the deaths were not medical in nature.
“They said that it wasn’t medical and that they figured asphyxiation, and that I had supposedly had a postpartum overwhelming blackout and done it to my children,” Andrea said. The couple had no other children.
The family has since filed a report with the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a federal database used to collect reports of health events following vaccination.
As of late May 2025, a family spokesperson said investigators were still awaiting toxicology results and had not ruled out the parents, though police have not publicly named any suspects.