Ahead of new murder trial, Lori Vallow Daybell feels certain she will be exonerated in children's deaths
In her first-ever media interview, Lori Vallow Daybell expressed no remorse for the murder of her children and said she feels 'great' acting as her own attorney in the upcoming trial over the fatal shooting of her estranged husband.
During an often combative 90-minute interview at an Arizona jail, Lori, 51, told 'Dateline' that she was falsely accused and convicted in the 2019 murders of Joshua 'JJ' Vallow, 7; Tylee Ryan, 16; and her husband's previous wife, Tammy Daybell, 49.
Lori said that she and her husband, Chad Daybell, who was also convicted in the three murders, will be exonerated because Jesus showed her the future and they were not incarcerated.
'After I get exonerated, maybe I'll go on 'Dancing With the Stars' and you can come,' she said to NBC's Keith Morrison.
For more on the case, tune in to 'Lori Vallow Daybell: The Jailhouse Interview' on 'Dateline' at 9 ET/8 CT tonight.
Chad, 56, self-published end times-themed novels and claimed to have had near-death experiences that allowed him to see the past and future and into the spirit world.
During his 2024 trial, prosecutors said he labeled victims 'dark' or 'zombies' before they were killed.
Chad was sentenced to death after his May conviction in an Idaho courtroom on charges of murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and insurance fraud. Lori was convicted separately in 2023 of murder in the deaths of her children and conspiracy to commit murder in Tammy's killing. She was given multiple life sentences without the possibility of parole.
'Our theme was, 'This is about money, sex and power,'' Madison County Prosecuting Attorney Rob Wood said of prosecutors' approach in Daybells' case. 'There were all these tangential religious issues, but it really was about money and sex and trying to control people who were in the way that they called obstacles.'
'They got rid of them, and they profited from that,' Wood told 'Dateline.'
Investigators said that they suspect Lori's now-deceased brother, Alex Cox, likely killed Tylee, JJ and Tammy. They believe he tried to fatally shoot Brandon Boudreaux, the estranged husband of Lori's niece, and he admitted killing Lori's estranged husband, Charles Vallow, on July 11, 2019.
Cox described the shooting as an act of self-defense, according to an interview he gave to police at the time. But to Doug Hart, a former FBI agent who investigated the killings, Cox was a 'cold-blooded killer.'
'He was the one who was willing to do anything for his sister and ultimately anything for Chad,' he told 'Dateline.'
In the months before his death, Charles filed for divorce from Lori and told authorities that he believed she might try to kill him. According to body camera video of the conversation he had with police in Gilbert, Arizona, he said that his wife had come to view herself as a 'resurrected being' and a god.
'She said, 'You're not Charles,'' he told police. ''I don't know who you are or what you did with Charles … but I can murder you now.''
Lori met her new husband, Chad, at a religious conference in Utah in 2018 — a meeting she described to 'Dateline' as 'amazing.'
'I recognized him spiritually,' Lori said. 'And he recognized me spiritually, that we had known each other for eternities.'
Days before his killing, Charles discovered his wife was having an affair with Chad and sent an email to his wife, Tammy, saying he had 'disturbing information' about their respective spouses, law enforcement documents in the case show.
After her estranged husband's fatal shooting, Lori contacted the company linked to his $1 million life insurance policy and learned she was no longer the beneficiary, according to a text message she sent to Chad.
In the message, which was introduced as evidence at Lori's murder trial, she appeared to refer to Charles as 'Ned' and said he'd probably changed the policy in March — 'before we got rid of him.'
'It's a spear through my heart,' she said, according to the text.
Cox, Lori's brother, died in December 2019 of what the Maricopa County Office of the Medical Examiner said was a pulmonary embolism. In 2021, a grand jury indicted Lori on a charge of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in connection with her estranged husband's death.
That charge has since been upgraded to first-degree murder.
Lori was also charged with conspiring to kill Boudreaux, her niece's estranged husband who also lived in the Phoenix area, and will be tried separately on that charge. She has pleaded not guilty in both cases.
In her interview with 'Dateline,' Lori cited the upcoming trial and declined to discuss the text message or other details related to the upcoming cases.
'Did you watch your children die?' Morrison asked at one point.
'That's a really sad question,' she responded, adding: 'I was not there.'
Seven weeks after her estranged husband's death, Lori moved with JJ and Tylee from Arizona to an apartment in Rexburg, Idaho, that was a short drive from Chad's rural property.
The children vanished that September, and their remains were found nine months later on Chad's property. JJ had been buried in a pet cemetery, prosecutors said at trial, while Tylee was dismembered and burned in a fire pit.
In her interview, Lori denied that her new husband identified the children as 'dark,' saying that was 'a narrative that you've been running.'
In an interview last year with her older son on 'Scar Wars,' his podcast, Lori implied that her daughter might have killed her son accidentally and, filled with grief, then taken her own life.
'It must be nice and easy to blame my dead little sister for everything,' the older sibling, Colby Ryan, told 'Dateline.' 'That's all lies.'
On Oct. 19, 2019 — weeks after the disappearance of JJ and Tylee — Chad and his son dialed 911 to report that they had found his then-wife, Tammy, dead at their home, a recording of the call shows.
Tammy's death was initially attributed to natural causes, but investigators later exhumed her body and conducted an autopsy that found she died by asphyxiation. Chad and Lori married weeks after Tammy died and received a nearly half-million-dollar life insurance payout connected to the death, prosecutors said at Lori's trial.
In her interview with 'Dateline,' Lori asserted her innocence in Tammy's death, saying they 'proved' in court that she died of natural causes.
Lori is now set to stand trial in Charles' killing. A judge ruled in December that she can act as her own attorney — a process she described to 'Dateline' as a 'great' but 'difficult thing to do.'
Jury selection is scheduled to begin March 31. A trial date has not been set for Boudreaux's case.
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