Idaho mother indicted in twins' suffocation deaths after vaccine claims

A Payette County grand jury indicted Andrea Shaw on two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of her 18-month-old twins, Dallas and Tyson Shaw. The indictment alleges the children were suffocated, and the 23-year-old mother from Payette, Idaho, was arrested in Boise after the charges were returned. Shaw later appeared virtually for arraignment in Payette County District Court on July 2.

Children’s Health Defense, the organization founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has filed a parallel civil claim saying vaccines caused the twins’ deaths. Prosecutors have rejected that explanation.

Shaw appeared on an anti-vaccine podcast after the twins died. Her defense has argued the matter is medical, not criminal, and a St. Luke’s pediatrician initially diagnosed the boys with a post-vaccine reaction. Prosecutors have treated the deaths as homicides since the investigation began.

Dallas and Tyson were born three months early and spent time in the NICU before they died on May 1, 2025. Their deaths drew scrutiny because the family’s public claims about vaccine injury now collide with a grand jury’s allegation that the boys were killed by suffocation.