She is charged with murdering her twins whom she claimed were killed by vaccines
Andrea
Shaw, 23, formerly of Payette, Idaho, was arrested on Tuesday after a grand
jury returned an indictment, charging her with two counts of first-degree
murder, which requires premeditation, in connection with the deaths of her
18-month-old twins, Dallas and Tyson. Police found the twins unresponsive in
their shared bed on May 1, 2025 after responding to a 911 call.
Shaw blamed the flu, hepatitis A, and DTaP (tetanus,
diphtheria, and pertussis) vaccines the children had received days earlier, but
the indictment
alleges that she suffocated the toddlers. The arrest concludes “a
lengthy and thorough” multi-agency investigation led by the Payette Police
Department, according to a press release posted to
the department’s Facebook page. That investigation was launched last year as
foul play was suspected.
Children’s Health Defense (CHD), the anti-vaccine advocacy
group founded and previously led by Kennedy before he became Health and Human
Services Secretary, picked up Shaw’s story and promoted it for months. Days
after her children’s deaths, Shaw appeared on a CHD podcast, claiming that her
husband’s side of the family all suffered allergic reactions to the flu shot
that the pediatrician ignored. In the days after the vaccines, she said, her
children deteriorated, prompting a hospital visit. On the eighth day, they
died.
Shaw later became the lead plaintiff in a racketeering
lawsuit filed by the group against the American Academy of Pediatrics
(AAP)—while under investigation for murder.
The CHD suit, launched in January, alleged that AAP had violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act by making false and fraudulent claims about the safety of the childhood immunization schedule and blocking efforts to study its cumulative safety. It claimed the AAP was engaged in this activity while receiving donations for its charitable work from vaccine manufacturers.
The lawsuit came as AAP was waging a legal battle of its own
against Kennedy’s HHS over changes made to the U.S. childhood and adolescent
vaccine schedule. In its suit, AAP alleged the schedule changes were made
“without following the evidentiary-driven, and legally required processes.” A
federal judge in that case temporarily
halted the changes and stayed Kennedy’s new appointments to the CDC’s
vaccine advisory committee.
In its complaint,
CHD noted that Shaw was being investigated for murder in connection with the
deaths of her children, but painted the investigation as a consequence of AAP’s
“fraudulent safety claims.”
“Rather than investigating the documented post-immunization
reaction as a potential cause of death, local authorities opened a homicide
investigation targeting Mrs. Shaw,” it read. “Prosecutors have theorized that
she caused her children’s deaths through a ‘postpartum blackout’ or that ‘the
house was too hot.’ This criminal investigation is a foreseeable consequence of
AAP’s fraudulent safety claims: when the medical system has been told that
vaccines cannot cause serious injury or death, grieving parents become suspects
rather than victims.”
CHD has stood by Shaw, painting her as a victim of political
prosecution. An article published
on Thursday by the group’s media outlet, The Defender, claimed that “Rather
than investigating Andrea’s vaccine concerns, the Payette Police Department
opened an investigation into her.”
In a post on
X, promoting the Defender story, CHD CEO Mary Holland wrote “Parents deserve to
be heard when they raise vaccine safety concerns for their own children. This
mother wasn’t — and now she’s facing life in prison.”
Other anti-vax voices on X also defended Shaw. “This may be
the best reason for not vaccinating your kids: to avoid being charged with
first degree murder,” wrote entrepreneur
Steve Kirsch, who runs the so-called Vaccine Safety Research Fund and has
written for The Defender. Dr. Lynn Fynn of
the Independent
Medical Alliance framed the charges as a warning.
“Moms, do you know who Andrea Shaw is? You should because it could happen to any of you,” she wrote.