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4 hours ago
- Entertainment
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Lori Vallow Daybell: What to know about 'Doomsday Mom' and her convictions
Lori Vallow Daybell now faces sentencing in two Arizona convictions after a jury found her guilty of conspiring to murder her niece's ex-husband, Brandon Boudreaux. The two convictions capped a series of tangled conspiracies, apocalyptic beliefs and family murders that unfolded in 2019 and led to trials in two states. The Arizona trials were marked by drama both in front of the jury and behind the scenes. As her own attorney, Daybell filed several motions to have her convictions thrown out and have multiple judges disqualified. She also repeatedly clashed with the judges and prosecutors. But she insisted to the jury in her second trial in Arizona that she was a loving person without anger, telling them: 'I am a person who loves all people and has no malice toward people, not even the prosecutors.' Born in 1973 in Southern California into a large Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints family, Daybell eventually would live in three different states and marry five different men by the time she was 46. Her first four marriages would last about three years each. Daybell married her first husband, Nelson Yanes, when she was 19, according to reporting by East Idaho News. After their brief marriage ended, she married William Lagioia in 1995, with whom she had a son, Colby Ryan. The two were separated by 1998. In 2001 she married Joseph Ryan and had her second child, Tylee Ryan. The two lived in Texas, where she had a career as a hairdresser and competed as a beauty queen. She also appeared on 'Wheel of Fortune,' winning about $17,500 in cash and prizes. Her marraige with Ryan lasted until 2004. He died of a heart attack in 2018. In 2006 Lori Daybell married Charles Vallow in Las Vegas. The family lived in Texas for several years before relocating to Hawaii in 2014 and ran a juice business. The family moved again in 2016, this time to Arizona, where Charles worked as a life insurance agent. Two years into their life in Arizona, Lori Daybell met Chad Daybell at e religious conference in St. George, Utah, for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who focused on apocalyptic beliefs. Chad Daybell was a self-published author who wrote fiction centered on end-times prophecy. Aspects of her life and the murders have been covered in two streaming movies since 2021. The Lifetime movie "Doomsday Mom: The Lori Vallow Story," which stars Lauren Lee Smith as Lori Daybell, focuses on the disappearance of her children, Tylee and Joshua 'J.J.', and the events leading up to the charges against her. A Netflix documentary titled "Sins of Our Mother," released in 2022, explored her radical beliefs, the deaths of her children, and includes interviews with her surviving son, Colby Ryan. Both series covered the ins-and-outs of what would be the saga that continues in 2025. The truth behind Daybell's murders began to unfold almost 900 miles away in Rexburg, Idaho, where the bodies of her two children — 7-year-old Joshua 'J.J.' Vallow and 16-year-old Tylee Ryan— were found buried in 2020. For months, family and friends had searched for the children, who were reported missing in September 2019. Daybell had recently moved to Idaho to be with Chad Daybell. Idaho prosecutors claimed the couple justified the murders as a spiritual mission, eliminating anyone who stood in their way of building a new life together, including Chad Daybell's former wife, Tammy Daybell. According to testimony and evidence, the couple described the children and other relatives as 'zombies.' Once labeled a zombie, prosecutors said, the couple believed the person's body needed to be destroyed. Lori Daybell was first represented by a private attorney, Mark Means, who was disqualified after a judge ruled a conflict of interest since he also had represented Chad Daybell. Public defender Jim Archibald took over after Means. Lori Daybell and Chad Daybell were found guilty of the three deaths in Idaho. She was sentenced to multiple life terms and he was sentenced to death. After his conviction, Chad Daybell was placed on death row in Idaho, housed at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna, just south of Boise. The execution process in Idaho resembles that in Arizona. After sentencing, an automatic appeals process is triggered, meaning it may be years before the state attorney general requests an execution warrant. When Lori Daybell's Arizona cases are finished, she will return to prison in Pocatello, Idaho. While there is no order prohibiting the two from communicating with each other, communications between prisons in most jurisdictions are prohibited. After the Idaho cases, two other charges still loomed over Daybell in Arizona. She was her own attorney in these 2025 cases. Her former husband, Charles Vallow, had died after being shot by Daybell's older brother, Alex Cox, in July 2019, months after Vallow had filed for divorce. Cox told Chandler police he shot in self-defense, but an investigation that spanned almost two years showed Cox and Daybell strategized to lure Vallow to her home and provoke a fight. Cox never testified in court. He died in December 2019 from an embolism. Daybell portrayed the shooting as a family tragedy that prosecutors had turned into something more. Prosecutors said Daybell told acquaintances that Vallow was being controlled by an evil spirit and claimed to have been drugging him. Daybell attempted to collect Vallow's life insurance policy but was unsuccessful after learning he had changed the beneficiary to his sister, Kay Woodcock. A jury convicted Daybell of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder on April 22. After the conviction, Woodcock said, 'I'm glad this is done. Now we just have to get justice for Brandon.' A little over a month later, Daybell would face Boudreaux in court. Daybell characterized the attempted murder charges as a vendetta by Boudreaux, claiming that he blamed her for the collapse of his marriage to her niece Melani Pawlowski. About a month before Charles Vallow's death, Boudreaux texted Daybell and her then-husband, saying she was feeding Pawlowski lies that led to their divorce. After Cox killed Vallow and the children went missing, Boudreaux grew suspicious. Pawlowski had rented an apartment in the same Idaho complex where Daybell lived. Now separated, Boudreaux had rented a home in Gilbert, Arizona. One week after moving in, someone shot at him from the back of a Jeep Wrangler parked outside his driveway. 'So as I let the car kind of coast in, that back window pops up, I see a muzzle, I hear a bang — and your fight or flight kicks in at that point,' he testified. He immediately pointed investigators to Daybell and Cox. Prosecutors tied the Jeep to Daybell. Cell phone data later revealed Cox drove from Idaho to Arizona two days before the shooting. Records also showed Daybell called herself from Cox's phone in Idaho about an hour before the shot was fired in an effort to create an alibi for Cox, prosecutors argued. The trial lasted five days. Jurors found Daybell guilty on the sixth day after about 30 minutes of deliberation. As her own attorney, Daybell struggled to keep up with her cases. She consistently missed deadlines for disclosing reports and witnesses, while Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Justin Beresky worked to give her enough time to prepare. At one point, he suggested she request a delay to give her experts time to analyze evidence. She refused. 'This is one of the things where you have to weigh your options on whether it's worth it to get a continuance so you can have your defense do the work that you want done,' Beresky told her. But Daybell wanted to proceed as scheduled and told the judge, 'I understand that is the rule, and I understand how unfair and prejudicial that would be to me.' Daybell's sense of injustice grew as the trial went forward. After her conviction, she filed motions to toss out the verdict and disqualify Beresky, claiming bias. 'You've denied every single one of my motions,' she said in court. Beresky replied: 'File a motion that has legal merit, and I will approve it.' Her motion to vacate and disqualify him were denied. She also tried to remove Superior Court Judge Jennifer Green, who had denied her request to disqualify Beresky. The case was referred to a third judge, Kevin Wein, who ruled the motions were untimely and denied her again. The start of her second trial failed to launch as planned. On the first day, Daybell arrived in a wheelchair and told the judge she was too ill to proceed. Beresky granted a two-day delay. When she asked if he would have her dragged to court, he replied he would because as her own attorney she would be the only one who could waive her appearance. 'You're welcome to come over to the jail, come to my cell and see how I'm doing in there,' she told him in frustration. Tensions escalated. On the second day of testimony, Beresky kicked Daybell out of court during a hearing held outside the jury's presence. She had interrupted him and accused him of yelling. 'I'm not yelling, OK,' Beresky replied. 'Yeah, you are. You're not in charge of me that way,' Daybell said. 'Okay, take her out. Take her out. Take her out,' the judge ordered. He warned that she was on the verge of losing the right to represent herself, and after a recess, she returned and apologized. Daybell was scheduled to be sentenced by Beresky in both of her Arizona convictions July 25. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Lori Vallow Daybell trials: What to know about 'Doomsday Mom'
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Twisted Story of How Lori Vallow Ended Up Convicted of Murder
Originally appeared on E! Online When was arrested in February 2020, five months after anyone had last seen her son Joshua "JJ" Vallow, 7, and daughter Tylee Ryan, 16, police said she refused to provide a straight answer about either child's whereabouts. Three years later she was found guilty of killing her children and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. After a month-long trial during which the defense didn't call any witnesses, Lori was convicted of first-degree murder in the deaths of JJ and Tylee, as well as conspiracy to commit murder in the 2019 death of Tammy Daybell, her husband Chad Daybell's ex-wife. She was also found guilty of grand theft by deception for continuing to collect Social Security benefits on her kids' behalf after they were dead. Chad has since been sentenced to death after being found guilty of murdering JJ, Tylee and Tammy. And on April 22, Lori was convicted of conspiring to kill her fourth husband, Charles Vallow, who was fatally shot by her late brother Alex from E! Online Penn Badgley Makes Rare Comment on Dating Blake Lively During Gossip Girl Fame Kanye West Says He Had Past Incestuous Relationship With Cousin Michelle Obama Breaks Silence on Skipping Donald Trump's Inauguration Before being sentenced for murder in 2023, Lori told the court that she'd been in touch with the "spirit world," and knew that Tylee and JJ were happy. "Jesus knows me and Jesus understands me," she said, per NBC News. "I mourn with all of you who mourn my children and Tammy. Jesus Christ knows the truth of what happened here, Jesus Christ knows no one was murdered in this case. Accidental deaths happen, suicides happen, fatal side effects from medications happen." More recently, she told Dateline's Keith Morrison that she and Chad expected to be exonerated. "After I get exonerated," she added, "maybe I'll go on Dancing With the Stars, and you can come." Lori didn't take the stand in her defense during the 2023 trial, but grisly testimony did shed some light on what happened to her kids. JJ and Tylee were confirmed dead by authorities in June 2020 after their remains were found buried in the backyard of Chad's house in Fremont County, Idaho. During the trial, Ada County Coroner Dr. Garth Warren testified JJ's cause of death was asphyxia from his mouth being covered with duct tape and a plastic bag put over his head, while Tylee's was homicide by unspecified means. Meanwhile, Lori's behavior became the subject of rampant speculation and scrutiny, but the question of how she went from eccentric mom to convicted killer is perhaps unanswerable. "I don't know if we will ever know exactly what motivated Lori to commit such unspeakable crimes," Skye Borgman, director of the 2022 Netflix documentary Sins of Our Mother, told E! News ahead of its premiere. "But to formulate any answer we must look at Lori through the eyes of the people who knew her best." Lori questioned that approach to telling her story. "How do you know a person if you've never talked to them in five years?" she said on Dateline in 2025 of those who purported to speak to her state of mind. "How do you know anything about them? How do you know anything about their life, how it really is?"What those who knew Lori seemed to agree on was that meeting Chad changed everything. "I saw him as the hand and her as the puppet on that hand," Melanie Gibb, a former friend of Lori's, told NBC News' Dateline in 2020 after the children's remains had been identified. "They were both like gasoline and fire. Not a good match. But equally destructive to each other. So in a way, they were their equal match, in that they were destructive to each other. They both had deception in them." Tylee was last seen with JJ on Sept. 8, 2019, during a trip to Yellowstone National Park with their mom and Lori's brother Alex Cox—who had fatally shot Lori's fourth husband, Charles Vallow, that July. (Cox, who died in December 2019 after suffering a pulmonary embolism, maintained he fired in self-defense.) JJ was last seen at his Idaho elementary school on Sept. 23, 2019. Lori told the school that she planned to start homeschooling her son, who had autism, according to the Rexburg Police, which shared photos from the family's last vacation to aid in the search. JJ's grandparents on his dad's side, Larry and Kay Woodcock, reported the children missing in late November 2019, after which Lori and Chad left town and turned up on the Hawaiian island of Kauai in January 2020, still maintaining that JJ and Tylee were fine. Authorities said they suspected the children were in danger. "From the moment we first heard about it, it was pretty clear from the start that something very bad had happened to these children," Dateline's Morrison, who hosted the 2021 podcast Mommy Doomsday about the Vallow case, told E! News. "For a little while, I think that there was some hope that those children would be found alive. And certainly, anybody who cared about them, as obviously their families did—what was left to their families—was desperately hoping that they were okay." "But, you know," he continued, "there was certainly an understanding as well, that the outcome of this was probably not going to be good."After her niece and nephew's remains were positively identified on June 13, 2020, Lori's sister Summer Cox Shiflet—who had previously defended Lori to those who expected the worse—took to Facebook to admit that she was wrong, though she was going to continue to see where the investigation went. "Tylee and JJ are completely irreplaceable in our family," she wrote. "I have loved them greatly all of their lives. There are no words that can capture this loss. Words are just inadequate. We have dozens of Tylee and JJ stories that we love and share frequently. We had prayed our hearts out for them and hoped with all of our hearts they were safe. But we sadly have to face this new reality and our family will never ever be the same." Police had previously searched Chad's house in Salem, Idaho, in January 2020, carrying out more than three dozen items, including computers, cell phones, medication and paperwork. Madison County Prosecutor Rob Wood said via Zoom during a June 10, 2020, court hearing that the "manner of concealment" of one of the bodies was "particularly egregious," per NBC News. The criminal complaint alleged the remains had been in Chad's yard since sometime between Sept. 22, 2019, and June 9, 2020. "This whole process is really hard," Colby Ryan, Lori's son from her second marriage, told East Idaho News in June 2021 after Chad had joined Lori in pleading not guilty to murder. "We've all had to go through it but he's going to say what he's going to say. He's going to lie about it. From the beginning, they have lied about it. So, there's nothing you can do about it." In August 2021, however, Chad's children told 48 Hours that they believed their father didn't kill anyone, including their mom Tammy. Daughter Emma Murray alleged that Chad was framed; when asked by who, she replied, "I think it's pretty clear it was Lori and Alex." Yet by all accounts, Lori hadn't uttered a word against Chad since their arrest. "The stories that we have heard from her jailers are that she's reading Chad's books, she's writing him letters, she's dancing in her cell," Morrison told E! News in 2021. "She still seems to be caught up in the belief that she is going to be swept out of all this and taken up to heaven sometime in the next little while." How Lori may have reached that conclusion is a complicated story. Up until just a few weeks before he wed Lori, Chad had been married to Tammy, the mother of his five grown children, for almost 30 years. Tammy died in her sleep at her Salem home on Oct. 19, 2019, her death initially assumed to be of natural causes. Her kids later told CBS News that the family decided against having an autopsy performed. But police opened an investigation, calling the 49-year-old's death "suspicious." At first local detectives called to the scene didn't notice anything particularly off, Fremont County Sheriff Len Humphries told in January 2020, but then Arizona authorities got in touch with his office. "There is a lot of concern for the safety of the kids," Humphries said. "The information that is coming out of Arizona in reference to deaths of multiple people is concerning." Tammy's body was exhumed Dec. 11, 2019, and on Feb. 4, 2021, authorities announced her autopsy was complete and the Utah Medical Examiner's findings had been handed over to the Fremont County Sheriff's Office."The contents of this report will not be made public at this time as it is evidence in an open and ongoing investigation," Humphries stated in a news release. "We will release additional information as it becomes available." Though the official report was still under wraps, Chad's son Garth Daybell told CBS News' 48 Hours in 2022 that investigators determined Tammy's cause of death was asphyxiation. (Fremont County Prosecutor Lindsey A. Blake confirmed as much during Lori's trial.) But, his brother Mark Daybell added, that didn't necessarily mean their mom was smothered. "There's more facts we need," Mark said. "We don't just say, 'Oh, well, bye, Chad.' No, there's still love, there's still connection."After Tylee and JJ's bodies were found in June 2020, Matt and Heather Daybell, Chad's brother and sister-in-law, said in a statement to E! News, "The events of the past nine months have weighed heavily on our family—it has been one of the most difficult things we have ever had to go through. Some in our extended family are still struggling to accept the reality that Chad could have been involved in something so terribly wrong." "We also continue to pray for Tammy and Chad's adult children and their spouses," the couple continued. "Because of the difficulty of this situation, our relationship with them has been significantly strained. As a result, we have had no contact with them or Chad for the last many months—we do not know where his children stand at this time."East Idaho News received a statement credited to Tammy's parents, siblings and extended family in response to the grisly discovery on Chad's property: "As the family of our beloved Tammy, we want to extend our deepest and heartfelt love and sympathy to the families of Tylee and JJ. We share the pain of the tremendous and shocking loss you are enduring. We still suffer and we will suffer with you for many years to come. Please know we will continue our prayers to strengthen your families, as you are finally able to properly lay to rest your precious Tylee and JJ." "As matters move through the judicial process," they continued, "we pray that each of our families can be strengthened and trust that justice will be swiftly served. We wish to thank the many members of law enforcement and the FBI who continue to work tirelessly as investigations continue, and the public who have shown such love and support for our families. We also ask that our privacy continue to be respected at this time as we continue to grieve for Tammy, and the Woodcock and the Ryan families grieve this unfathomable loss." Tylee's father and Lori's third husband, Joseph Ryan, died in April 2018 of a heart attack. Authorities opted to review the circumstances of his death in 2020 after a recording surfaced, purportedly from an October 2018 religious gathering, in which Lori was heard saying, "I was going to murder him. I'm going to kill him like the scriptures say." Per East Idaho News, the context indicated that she was talking about Joseph. Upon further review, Phoenix Police determined that there was nothing criminal about Joseph's death. Lori married Charles Vallow in 2006 and they adopted JJ in 2014. (Kay Woodcock is Charles' sister, so Charles was biologically JJ's great-uncle.) Charles filed for divorce from Lori in February 2019, noting in his divorce petition—filed in Arizona, where they lived—that he was increasingly concerned by his wife's behavior since she had gotten involved with an extreme offshoot of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints whose main focus is preparing for the impending end of the world. According to court documents obtained by Phoenix's Fox 10, Charles alleged that Lori had threatened to kill him if she got in his way, that the end was coming in July 2019 and he wouldn't stop her from being ready. "Mother [Lori] believes that she is receiving spiritual revelations and visions to help her gather and prepare those chosen to live in the New Jerusalem after the Great War as prophesied in the Book of Revelations," the petition noted in the filing, Charles said that Lori had transferred 2,000 Enterprise Rent-A-Car points from his account and had moved a total of $35,000 among their various bank accounts, leaving him worried she was planning to leave the state with JJ. Charles was seeking sole custody. The divorce petition was dismissed that March, however, and Charles' son from another relationship told Fox 10 that his father wanted to try to save the marriage. However, the son (he didn't want his name made public) helped his father move from Arizona to Texas with JJ that month as well. "Lori had basically just disappeared," the son said, "and he had no idea where she went for I think two-ish months, and so eventually he was like, 'Alright, I have to move away for JJ's sake, for JJ's safety,' and so he decided to move to Houston."Charles eventually took JJ back to Arizona, where Lori and Tylee were still living, and it was at their home in Chandler where the 63-year-old was fatally shot by Lori's brother, Alex Cox, on July 11, 2019. Local headlines reported that the shooting occurred during a "family fight," or "family argument." "I got in a fight with my brother-in-law and I shot him in self-defense," Alex told the 911 dispatcher. According to Alex, Charles and Lori had been having an argument and he went to intervene, worried that Charles would get violent with his sister. Tylee then came into the room with a bat, ostensibly to defend her mom, but Charles took the bat and hit Alex in the head with it. Alex told Chandler police that he then went to his room to get his gun. Charles was shot twice in the chest. Alex first told police that Lori had left with the kids before he shot Charles, but Lori told investigators she heard the gunshots from the kitchen and then went outside to check on the kids, who were waiting in Charles' rental car, and then drove away in that vehicle. Lori was first linked to Chad when they appeared on an episode of Preparing a People Podcast Network's Time to Warrior Up toward the end of 2018. (Episodes featuring Chad and the two of them together were later removed and Preparing a People distanced itself from both Chad and Lori, according to the East Idaho News.) Chad, who married Tammy in 1990 in Utah, is the author of numerous faith-themed books, including the Standing in Holy Places series with titles like The Great Gathering and The Renewed Earth. At the end of August 2019, Lori moved with JJ and Tylee to Rexburg, Idaho. Her niece Melani Boudreaux, who had also been living in Arizona, said in an interview that she moved to Idaho that November. Before leaving Arizona, Melani filed for divorce from her husband, Brandon Boudreaux, who later stated in child custody-related court documents and told media outlets that his now ex-wife got caught up in the same extreme religious teachings that Lori started following.A self-identified friend of Tylee's from Arizona, who didn't want her name reported, told the Boise Post Register in January 2020 that she had texted Tylee on Oct. 19, 2019, that she missed her, and received a reply from Tylee's number on Oct. 25, reading, "hi. miss you guys too ...luv ya." The friend, who showed the paper a screenshot of the text via Facebook Messenger, recalled thinking the wording didn't sound like Tylee. "When she lived here, she responded immediately," the friend said. "And when she moved [to Rexburg], it slowly decreased in response time." The friend said Tylee hadn't wanted to move to Idaho and originally planned to stay at her family's house, but ultimately Tylee decided to go because she was "protective of JJ, 'cause he was her little brother."The friend also told the Post Register that Tylee had already earned her GED, which is why she didn't attend school in Idaho. Meanwhile, Lori rented a storage unit in Rexburg on Oct. 1, 2019, and visited it nine times and once the following month, according to the East Idaho News, which reviewed surveillance footage. On Oct. 9, Tammy Daybell called 911 to report that a masked man had shot a paintball gun at her, and she had no idea why. She died on Oct. 19 and her funeral was held Oct. 22. Chad and Lori married on Nov. 5, to authorities' timeline of events, police showed up at the couple's address on Nov. 26 to conduct a welfare check on JJ at the behest of his grandparents, who hadn't heard from him for months. Chad and Lori said he was staying with friends in Arizona. By the next day, Chad and Lori had left their townhouse in Rexburg. Authorities later discovered that they flew to Hawaii on Dec. 1, airline records indicating it was just the two of them. On Dec. 12, 2019, Lori's brother Alex died in Gilbert, Ariz., at the age of 51. Autopsy results released in May 2020 stated he suffered from blood clots in his lungs, brought on by other health problems, and died of natural causes. His family, including his widow, mother, sister and Melani, said in a statement to East Idaho News: "Rampant rumors of evil plots and conspiracy robbed the family of their time to grieve the loss of their husband, son, brother, and uncle. Even so, the family finds comfort in the medical examiner's finding that Alex Cox died of natural causes." Later that month, with the search for Tylee and JJ ongoing, Melani's ex Brandon told Salt Lake City's Fox 13, "I spent the last 11 years of my life spending time with Lori and her now-deceased husband Charles. I don't know what happened to those kids, but I know there's people who do, and they're not talking… I love them both. I hope they're safe. They're both just innocent and they didn't deserve to be involved in any of this." In the first week of January 2020, Kay and Larry Woodcock, JJ's grandparents, traveled from their home in Louisiana to Rexburg and announced a reward of $20,000 for information leading to answers about the kids' whereabouts. "These are beautiful young children. They're two extremely intelligent young children, and we want them back. We want them back in our family," Larry said. "We don't say the 'D word.' We don't want to and we're not going to because we truly believe and we hope and pray these kids are alive." In the first week of January 2020, Kay and Larry Woodcock, JJ's grandparents, traveled from their home in Louisiana to Rexburg and announced a reward of $20,000 for information leading to answers about the kids' whereabouts. "These are beautiful young children. They're two extremely intelligent young children, and we want them back. We want them back in our family," Larry said. "We don't say the 'D word.' We don't want to and we're not going to because we truly believe and we hope and pray these kids are alive." At the time, the Woodcocks didn't know where Chad and Lori were, either, the couple having not yet been located in Hawaii. "I'm terrified for JJ," Charles' son told Fox 10. "I'm terrified for Tylee. I'm terrified for everyone surrounding them and their safety. I'm terrified for my family's safety." On Jan. 10, 2020, Chad's brother Matt Daybell—who said he'd last seen Chad at Tammy's funeral—issued a public statement urging his big brother to cooperate in the search for the kids. "I have not been close to Chad since childhood," read part of the statement. "My immediate family has had little association with Chad the last many years due to our concerns with his religious claims and particular books he had chosen to publish, including his own. We are deeply saddened at the recent events that have played out the last several months. It is our hope and prayer that JJ and Tylee are safe." "We want for the truth to be found—whatever that truth turns out to be," the note continued. "Neither I, nor my wife and children have any more information than what has been reported by the news media. I plead again for Chad to come forward and cooperate with the investigation so that this very difficult situation might be resolved." On Jan. 25, 2020, Kauai Police served Lori with a notice ordering her to produce the kids for police in Rexburg or the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare within five days (the notice remains sealed because it concerns welfare of a minor case). The Jan. 30 deadline passed. Reporters showed up in Hawaii to find Lori and Chad and swarmed into Idaho as the case turned into a national media sensation. After she failed to comply with the order, Lori was arrested on Feb. 20, 2020. After six days in jail in Hawaii she was sent back to Idaho, and she's been locked up ever since. (In June 2021, she was declared unfit for trial and ordered into treatment at a mental health facility, delaying the proceedings for months. At her arraignment in April 2022, Lori refused to enter her own plea, prompting a judge to enter it on her behalf.) In April 2020, the East Idaho News obtained a letter sent from the Idaho Attorney General's Office to Fremont County prosecutors that confirmed that Chad and Lori were under investigation for conspiracy, attempted murder and murder in the death of Tammy Daybell. Lori's son Colby Ryan told Dateline's Morrison in an episode that aired May 1, 2020, that it hurt "so much" not knowing where JJ and Tylee were. "And on top of that, we have a million questions. So you can't call your own mom. You can't go to your house or her house and see your siblings. You're just out in the how do you not produce the kids? That's the whole reason you're in jail in the first place right now." Also before Tylee and JJ were confirmed dead, Melani told Phoenix's CBS 5 that she "absolutely" felt she'd see them again. "I know Lori wouldn't ever do anything to hurt her kids," she said. "I don't have the answers as to why she does the things she does, and why she hasn't spoken as to where they are, but I can't judge her because I don't know what she's going through. I can only love and support her, and hope for everyone to be safe." Melani, who said Lori was like a second mom as well as an aunt and friend, said she saw a lot of "judgment" and "a lot of lies" in the way her aunt was being portrayed in the public eye. "I don't know where my cousins are, her children JJ and Tylee, but I love all of them and I know she's doing whatever she can to keep her kids safe."She said Brandon "took" her kids from her, and denied abandoning or otherwise choosing to be apart from them. (Brandon was granted emergency custody of his and Melani's children because the "Mother was being investigated for numerous felonious acts across numerous jurisdictions," according to court documents filed in Maricopa County.) But Melani's new husband wasn't so sure that Lori's kids were safe. "It was a shock finding out Chad and Lori are gone, [that Lori's] kids are missing, people's doors are being kicked down because they can't find the kids," Ian Pawloski also said in the interview. Ian said that he got a call from his own mother, who told him that Melani's ex had alleged that Melani and Lori were in a doomsday cult, that Chad was a cult leader and that they had plotted to kill Brandon and succeeded in killing Charles Vallow. So, Ian agreed to go talk to the police, and FBI agents were there as well. "I was open to sharing everything I knew at that point," he said. And, he added, "It seems the information I shared with them just turned into this nationwide frenzy." (Originally published June 13, 2020, at 7 a.m. PT) For the latest breaking news updates, click here to download the E! News App
New York Times
23-04-2025
- New York Times
‘Doomsday Mom': What to Know About Lori Vallow Daybell's Convictions
Lori Vallow Daybell, the so-called Doomsday Mom who is serving three consecutive life sentences in Idaho for her role in the murders of two of her children and her husband's ex-wife, was convicted on Tuesday in Arizona of conspiracy in the killing of a former spouse. Ms. Vallow Daybell, 51, went on trial again on April 7 in the Arizona case, where she was charged with conspiring with her brother to kill her estranged fourth husband, Charles Vallow, in 2019. She pleaded not guilty and represented herself, arguing that the killing was in self-defense. After deliberating for just under three hours, a jury in Maricopa County Superior Court returned the unanimous guilty verdict against her. A sentencing date has not been set. Ms. Vallow Daybell and her fifth husband, Chad Daybell, 54, were tried separately in Idaho in connection with the deaths of two of Ms. Vallow Daybell's three children: Tylee Ryan, 16, and Joshua Vallow, 7, known as J.J. The children's remains were found buried on Mr. Daybell's property in 2020. In addition to being found guilty of first-degree murder in the deaths of the children, and of grand theft, in May 2023, Ms. Vallow Daybell was found guilty of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in the death of Tammy Daybell, Mr. Daybell's former wife. Mr. Daybell was found guilty of first-degree murder in May 2024 and was sentenced to death for the murders of Tammy Daybell and the children. The case is the subject of a Lifetime movie, 'Doomsday Mom: The Lori Vallow Story,' and of a Netflix documentary series, 'Sins of Our Mother.' Here's what to know about Ms. Vallow Daybell. What happened to the children? Tylee Ryan and J.J. Vallow were reported missing in November 2019 by J.J.'s grandparents, who had grown suspicious when they were unable to reach him by phone. Officers with the Rexburg Police Department in Idaho attempted to conduct a welfare check and later executed search warrants at the apartment complex where Ms. Vallow Daybell and her husband lived. The authorities said the couple seemed unconcerned with the children's whereabouts. In February 2020, Ms. Vallow Daybell was arrested in Hawaii on a warrant issued by the authorities in Idaho after, they said, she had not cooperated with the effort to find the missing children. In June 2020, investigators found human remains buried on Mr. Daybell's property in Idaho that were later identified as belonging to his wife's missing children. He was arrested and charged with concealing evidence. Ms. Vallow Daybell's 'doomsday' beliefs drew attention to the case. Prosecutors did not say how the children were killed, but the couple's religious beliefs played a role, according to the indictment. They 'did endorse and teach religious beliefs for the purpose of justifying' the deaths, the indictment said. News headlines labeled Ms. Vallow Daybell the 'Doomsday Mom.' In divorce records obtained by the Phoenix television station Fox 10, Charles Vallow, one of Ms. Vallow Daybell's former husbands, said she had told him that she believed she was 'receiving spiritual revelations and visions to help her gather and prepare those chosen to live in the New Jerusalem after the Great War as prophesied in the Book of Revelations.' Mr. Daybell has written several novels with recurring doomsday themes, and both he and Ms. Vallow Daybell have been linked to an entity called Preparing a People, which aims to ready people for the second coming of Jesus Christ, according to its website. Her second trial concerned the death of her fourth husband. After she was convicted in Idaho, Ms. Vallow Daybell was extradited to Arizona in December 2023 to face charges of conspiracy to commit murder in two other cases. The first of these, which ended in a conviction on April 22, involved the murder of Charles Vallow, the fourth of her five husbands, who was shot and killed in Arizona by her brother, Alexander Cox, in July 2019, when she and Mr. Vallow were estranged. Mr. Cox, who has since died, told the police that Mr. Vallow had hit him in the head with a baseball bat and that the shooting was in self-defense. Ms. Vallow Daybell is also expected to face trial in May on charges that she conspired to murder Brandon Boudreaux, her niece's former husband, The Associated Press reported. Mr. Boudreaux was not injured in October 2019 when someone shot at him from a Jeep that matched the description of a vehicle registered to Mr. Vallow, according to The A.P. What happened to Chad Daybell's ex-wife? Mr. Daybell's previous wife, Tammy Daybell, was found dead in her Idaho home in October 2019. The authorities initially said that she appeared to have died of natural causes, but her body was exhumed that December after the authorities began to question the circumstances of her death and its potential connection to the disappearances of Ms. Vallow Daybell's children. Prosecutors said at the start of Ms. Vallow Daybell's trial in Idaho that an autopsy later determined that Tammy Daybell died of asphyxiation. Mr. Daybell increased the amount of coverage in a life insurance policy for her in September 2019, a little more than a month before her death. Ms. Vallow Daybell and Mr. Daybell married shortly after their spouses died. Prosecutors described Ms. Vallow Daybell as a negligent mother. It took years for Ms. Vallow Daybell to stand trial in Idaho because she was initially declared not competent and was required to undergo 'restorative treatment.' During the trial, prosecutors described Ms. Vallow Daybell as a negligent mother with extreme beliefs who was on a 'religious mission' that she viewed as being more important than caring for her children. Former friends testified about Ms. Vallow Daybell and Mr. Daybell's purported religious beliefs. One, Melanie Gibb, said that Ms. Vallow Daybell believed that evil spirits could turn people into 'zombies' by taking over their bodies, and that she called J.J. and Tylee 'zombies,' The A.P. reported. Ms. Gibb testified that Ms. Vallow Daybell believed that the only way to get rid of the evil spirit was to kill the body. In the Idaho case, Jim Archibald, a lawyer for Ms. Vallow Daybell, described her as a 'kind and loving mother to her children' who was interested in religion and biblical prophesies involving the end of the world. He said that she was with other people in her apartment when J.J. and Tylee were killed and that she was in Hawaii at the time of Tammy Daybell's death. Ms. Vallow Daybell did not testify in her own defense, and her lawyers rested their case without calling any witnesses, Boise State Public Radio reported, telling the judge that they did not believe the state had proven its case. Judge Steven W. Boyce of Idaho's Seventh Judicial District said at the sentencing that allowing Ms. Vallow Daybell to serve her life terms concurrently 'would not serve the interest of justice.' 'The most unimaginable type of murder is to have a mother murdering her own children,' Judge Boyce said, 'and that's exactly what you did.'
Yahoo
08-03-2025
- Yahoo
Lori Vallow Daybell tells Keith Morrison she 'will be exonerated' in new interview for Dateline
Lori Vallow Daybell, an Idaho woman who was sentenced to life in prison in 2023 for the murders of her two youngest children, is speaking out from prison on "Dateline" in her first television interview about her conviction. Vallow Daybell tells veteran host Keith Morrison on the episode of "Dateline" airing on March 7 that she believes she and her husband, Chad Daybell, are innocent of the crimes. 'I will be exonerated," she said in an excerpt of the show. "We will both be exonerated in the future.' Vallow Daybell was found guilty in May 2023 of killing her two youngest children, daughter Tylee Ryan, 16, and son Joshua "JJ" Vallow, 7, whose remains were found buried in shallow graves on the property of Vallow Daybell's husband, Chad Daybell, police in Rexbury, Idaho, said. She initially pleaded not guilty. Vallow Daybell was also convicted of conspiring to kill Tammy Daybell, the ex-wife of Chad Daybell, who is Vallow Daybell's fifth husband. Chad Daybell was found guilty of three counts of first-degree murder in 2024 for the deaths of the two children and his ex-wife. He was sentenced to the death penalty in June 2024 and is currently on death row. Idaho prosecutors portrayed Chad Daybell as an author consumed by thoughts of the apocalypse who referred to people as 'zombies' and 'dark spirits.' Lori Vallow Daybell's ex-husband, Charles Vallow, referred to similar doomsday sentiments when he filed for divorce from her in February 2019. Vallow wrote in court documents filed in Arizona that his wife believed she was a god sent to lead people during the second coming of Christ, and he was concerned for his own safety and the safety of his children. The story of how Vallow Daybell's family believed she got hooked on doomsday beliefs is the subject of a Netflix true-crime series, 'Sins of Our Mother,' which premiered on Sept. 14, 2022. The two-hour special titled "Lori Vallow Daybell: The Jailhouse Interview" will air at 9 p.m. ET on March 7 on NBC. The episode also features interviews with retired FBI Supervisory Special Agent Doug Hart, and Sheriff Ron Ball, the former lead detective for the Rexburg Police Department, which investigated the murders. Detective Ray Hermosillo, co-lead for the Rexburg Police Department, also speaks about the case. Lori Vallow Daybell's son, Colby Ryan, also talked with Morrison about his relationship with his mother. This is the seventh "Dateline" broadcast featuring the story of the Daybells. Morrison also reported on the story for the popular "Dateline" podcast "Mommy Doomsday." In an interview from prison, Vallow Daybell told Morrison that she believes she and her husband, Chad Daybell, will be freed from their convictions. "I will be exonerated," she said. "We will both be exonerated in the future.' Morrison asked her why she thinks that will happen. "I have seen things in the future that Jesus showed me when I was in heaven," she said. "And we were not in jail and we were not in prison.' Morrison also spoke with Vallow Daybell's son, Colby Ryan, about his reaction to the gruesome murders of his siblings. 'I guess I was always a very positive, see-the-best-in-people kind of person. And then I watched someone that I knew my entire life do what she did," he said. "And it just changed the way I view people. "The way that my sister was treated was with hate. That's not even human to do what they did to her (body), after.' On June 13, 2020, the Rexburg Police Department confirmed that two sets of human remains discovered on Chad Daybell's property located in Fremont County, Idaho, were the bodies of the two article was originally published on
