Over a year ago, Idaho resident Andrea Shaw, 23, publicly blamed vaccines for the deaths of her two fraternal toddler twins. Local authorities are now instead pointing the finger at another culprit: Shaw herself.
On June 30, the Payette Police Department announced that Shaw was charged and arrested for the alleged first-degree murders of her 18-month-old son and daughter, following an indictment from a Payette County grand jury. Last year, on a podcast from a non-profit anti-vaccination organization formerly run by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Shaw claimed vaccines had contributed to their deaths.
“The Payette Police Department remains committed to seeking justice for the victims while ensuring the integrity of the criminal justice process,” the department stated.
Twin deaths
Dallas and Tyson Shaw were found dead on May 1, 2025, in a shared bed at the family’s residence in Payette, according to the Payette Police Department. At the time, police stated they were investigating the deaths as a potential homicide.
Less than a week later, Shaw went on a podcast hosted by Children’s Health Defense (CHD), a notorious backer of antivax propaganda, to talk about their deaths. She stated that her twins began experiencing health problems like blue lips and lethargy in late April 2025, roughly a week after they had received several vaccines. Shaw and other parents also participated in a RICO lawsuit filed with the Children’s Health Defense against the American Academy of Pediatrics earlier this year, which claimed the AAP had fraudulently misled families about the safety of the childhood vaccine schedule (no evidence suggests the schedule poses any major health risks).
During the CHD interview, Shaw said that she was being looked at as a suspect in her children’s deaths, and it seems like the authorities have been building up a case against her. In its announcement of Shaw’s indictment, the Payette Police Department cited the joint efforts of the Idaho State Police Forensic Services, the Ada County Medical Examiner’s Office, and the Payette County Coroner’s Office, among others. Shaw was arrested by police in Boise, where she currently resides, and she will eventually be extradited to Payette for arraignment.
Still blaming vaccines
According to documents viewed by local media outlet KTVB, the indictment against Shaw alleges her twins died of suffocation. For the time being, however, Shaw and her legal representation appear to be sticking to their original story that vaccines killed her children.
“They were looking at it as a vaccine death, and that’s still what I believe it to be,” Shaw’s private attorney Joseph Filicetti told KTVB last week. “I’m not a medical expert, but the medical experts I have, [they] go through a series of [steps] when looking at different complications.”
