In Payette, Idaho, population 8,800, a young mother is accused of killing her 18-month-old twins. She says childhood vaccinations killed them. The mother has the support of an anti-vaccine group founded by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Andrea Shaw, 23, is charged with the smothering murder of the twins — Tyson, a boy, and Dallas, a girl — in the middle of the night, in the bed that they shared. At trial, scheduled for January, evidence will show that “the only conceivable explanation” for their deaths is that she suffocated them, the Payette County prosecutor Mike Duke wrote in a court filing. Shaw has pleaded not guilty.

Three days after their twins died, Andrea and Nate Shaw appeared on a video podcast produced by Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group founded by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Shaw became the lead plaintiff in a federal lawsuit filed by Children’s Health Defense against the American Academy of Pediatrics. The Vaccine Safety Research Foundation, established in 2021 by Steve Kirsch, the Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur, is working “in conjunction” with Children’s Health Defense to help support Shaw and her family.