Eight months after 18-month-old twins died in their Idaho home, days after receiving the flu vaccine and other routine shots, Payette police told NBC Idaho news affiliate KTVB the case remains open. However, officials did not release any new information.
The parents told CHD.TV in May that police immediately treated them as suspects.
Last week, Payette Police Chief Gary Marshall told KTVB that the deaths of Dallas and Tyson Shaw remain “an active investigation” and that “there is no new information that can be released.”
Officials denied public records requests submitted to the Payette Police Department and the Ada County Coroner’s Office, citing the ongoing investigation.
Authorities have not released a cause or manner of death, and no toxicology or autopsy findings have been made public. It remains unclear whether investigators continue to view asphyxiation as a leading theory or whether alternative explanations are being considered.
Legal experts say such prolonged investigations are unusual. Kim Mack Rosenberg, general counsel for Children’s Health Defense, said most cases are resolved relatively quickly. However, it is “not unheard of … for an investigation to continue for over eight months with no real updates,” she said. But it is particularly difficult in cases like this, “where the family is still grieving the deaths of two young children.”
The twins were discovered dead in a shared bed at their family’s trailer on May 1, 2025. Police initially treated the case as a homicide, which officials said is standard when a death occurs from an unknown cause.
On May 7, Marshall said the deaths had not been “definitively” ruled homicides and that investigators were awaiting additional findings, including toxicology results.
The deaths came a week after the twins received multiple vaccines during a routine 18-month wellness visit. In May, their mother, Andrea Shaw, told CHD.TV that she and her mother-in-law raised concerns about the flu shot because of a family history of adverse reactions. She said the pediatrician assured them the children would be fine.
Nurses administered the flu vaccine along with hepatitis A and DTaP shots on April 23, 2025. The twins had previously received most routine childhood vaccinations, including their 1-year shots.
Twins struggled to move shortly after being vaccinated, mother said
Within hours, Andrea said the toddlers became lethargic and ill. The next morning, their lips were blue, and they struggled to move. Andrea took the twins to the emergency room and told the doctor they had received three vaccines the day before.
According to Andrea, the doctor said the children could “very well be having a bad reaction to the vaccinations,” she told CHD.TV Program Director Polly Tommey.
Hospital staff discharged the twins after they ate popsicles without vomiting. Symptoms, including diarrhea, vomiting and fatigue, continued for days.
Their father, Nathaniel Shaw, later said he was stunned by how quickly the toddlers’ condition changed. Within 24 hours, the children went from “perfectly happy-go-lucky active babies” to “looking like they were dying,” he told Tommey.
On the morning of May 1, Andrea found both children unresponsive. Police and paramedics were called, and investigators immediately focused on the parents. Andrea and Nathaniel told CHD.TV that they were treated as suspects.
“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 filed a report with the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS.
As of late May 2025, a spokesperson for the family said investigators were still waiting on toxicology reports and had not ruled out the parents. Police have not publicly named any suspects.
“These kids were the light of everyone’s world that came into contact with them,” Nathaniel said.
Related articles in The Defender
- Twin Babies Die a Week After Receiving 3 Vaccines, Police Interrogate Parents
- Police Detective: 50% of Sudden Infant Deaths Happened Within 48 Hours of Vaccination — But No One Is Allowed to Say It
- Doctors Will No Longer Receive Financial Rewards for Vaccinating Kids
- ‘Deeply Troubling’: Higher Mortality Rates Detected in Vaccinated 3-Month-Olds Compared With Unvaccinated Infants
