An Idaho mother said her toddlers died after routine vaccinations. Prosecutors say she murdered them

By Lauren Mascarenhas, Bill Kirkos, CNN

(CNN) — An Idaho mother who claimed her toddler twins died last year shortly after being vaccinated is now facing murder charges after prosecutors accused her of suffocating the children.

Andrea Shaw was charged with two counts of first-degree murder last week for the May 2025 deaths of her 18-month twins in Payette, a town about 60 miles northwest of Boise. If convicted, she could face life in prison or the death penalty.

Shaw’s attorney, Joe Filicetti, said the children’s deaths were not a crime, but rather the result of a medical issue after they received routine childhood vaccines.

“It’s been 14 months and our position has been the same all along, that she did nothing to cause the death of these two children,” Filicetti told CNN. “She followed the vaccine schedule and they were having vaccine reactions.” He added that Shaw took the twins to the doctor to be seen for the reactions.

Though medical authorities have long said that routine childhood vaccines are safe and effective, anti-vaccination groups — including one founded by the Health and Human Services secretary — have seized on the twins’ story in their efforts to challenge the acceptance of routine childhood vaccines recommended by medical authorities.

The Payette Police Department announced Shaw’s arrest last week. She is being held on a $2 million bond, court records show.

Shaw’s team is working to try to reduce her bond, and get her out of the Payette County Jail, where she is currently being held, Filicetti told CNN.

Shaw’s arrest was “the result of a lengthy and thorough investigation conducted by the Payette Police Department,” police said in a statement on Facebook. The department declined to make any additional comments about the facts or evidence of the case, only saying additional information will be provided as the judicial process proceeds.

Days after the death of her twins, Shaw and her husband, Nathaniel Shaw, appeared on an internet show produced by Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group founded by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., though he has not been affiliated with the group since December 2024 according to the Associated Press.

Anti-vaccination groups have seized on the twins’ story in their efforts to challenge the acceptance of routine childhood vaccines recommended by medical authorities.

Shaw said she did not previously hold anti-vaccine views. She described her twins, Dallas and Tyson, as being “normal, perfect, happy little babies,” the day before receiving their shots. The twins were born prematurely and spent 77 days in the NICU. Dallas loved “Strawberry Shortcake” and Tyson loved Lightning McQueen from the movie “Cars,” she said.

Shaw teared up as she spoke about the days after her children received routine medical vaccines for Hepatitis-A, diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis and the flu. She described finding her babies laying on their bellies in their crib, cold to the touch.

“They looked as if they had gone in their sleep; they were in their sleeping positions,” Shaw told the host of the program.

The twins’ father described police as being “disrespectful” and seeming to be suspicious upon their arrival.

“They constantly were trying to pin me and Andrea against each other, trying to get us to say, ‘Well, I think she did it,’ or ‘I think he did it,’” Nathaniel Shaw said during the May 2025 interview.

“It was just straight to interrogation: ‘We know one of you guys did it,’ without having any proof, without even having an autopsy done, and they were just very adamant that we had done it,” he added.

Andrea described her second day of police interrogation after the children had died.

“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 Shaw said. “It made me feel crazy.”

Shaw has joined Children’s Health Defense and others in a lawsuit accusing the American Academy of Pediatrics of racketeering for its role its “central role in an enterprise that has defrauded American families about the safety of the childhood vaccine schedule for several decades,” according to the Associated Press reporting.

The American Academy of Pediatrics said the lawsuit is part of a larger campaign targeting the institution and its “use of science-backed evidence in vaccine policy,” in a court filing, AP reported. The academy has asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit.

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