'Doomsday Cult' Mom Lori Vallow Has Been Sentenced
Updated July 31 2023, 10:29 p.m. ET
Shortly after J.J. and Tylee Vallow went missing in September 2019, their mother, Lori Vallow, raised suspicions. Just a few months after the children disappeared, Lori Vallow wed Chad Daybell (whose wife, Tammy Daybell, was killed just two weeks earlier).
In February 2020, Vallow and Daybell were arrested and the kids' remains were identified in Daybell's backyard in June of that year. They were each charged with the first-degree murders of Tylee Vallow and J.J. Vallow in 2021. Daybell was also charged for Tammy Daybell's death. Where is Lori Vallow today?
Lori Vallow Daybell will spend the rest of her life in prison.
Vallow was found guilty on July 31, 2023, of murdering Tylee and J.J. and conspiring to kill Tammy Daybell. She was sentenced to a triple life sentence with no opportunity for parole. But she might not be done being given life sentences. She is awaiting trial on two more conspiracy and murder cases in Arizona. One was conspiring with her brother to murder her fourth husband, Charles Vallow, and the other was to murder her niece's ex-husband. Though the latter survived an attempt, Charles Vallow was murdered in 2019.
It's pretty clear that she belongs off the streets.
Her husband, Chad Daybell, is awaiting trial for those murders and that of his ex-wife Tammy.
What happened to Charles Vallow?
As we mentioned, her fourth husband Charles was also murdered, this time by her brother Alex Cox. At the time he claimed that he killed Charles in self-defense and the police seemed to have taken him at his word. Alex then died of what authorities believe were natural causes. It seems that with the investigations into the murder of her children, Lori may have been involved in getting her brother to commit premeditated murder instead. We shall see what will happen in the trial.
The trial began back in April 2023.
More than three years after her initial arrest, Lori Vallow's trial finally began on April 3, 2023. A little over four weeks later, the jury delivered a guilty verdict for all six charges brought against her. Specifically, Vallow was found guilty of three counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, two counts of first-degree murder, and three counts of grand theft by deception. According to NBC News, Idaho plans on seeking the death penalty.
Initially, Vallow was scheduled to go on trial alongside her husband, Chad Daybell. However, per Idaho News, Judge Boyce ultimately decided to sever the couple's trials. KSL TV 5 reported that the courts are looking at June 2024 as a possibility for Daybell's trial. In a separate case, Lori was also charged in Arizona in connection with the death of her ex-husband Charles Vallow.
Lori Vallow's surviving son, Colby Ryan, took the stand for the prosecution.
Colby Ryan, Lori Vallow's surviving son, took the stand for the prosecution in her triple-murder trial.
NBC News shares that Ryan got emotional as the prosecutors showed him photos of his J.J. and Tylee. He said that Tylee was receiving social security benefits due to her father's passing in 2018, which allowed her to help him out financially. However, Ryan explained that once Tylee disappeared, the funds were sent to him from a different account with his mother's name.
Prosecutors played an emotional recorded phone call with Ryan confronting his mother about his siblings' deaths. The call was made after J.J. and Tylee's remains were found.
During the call, Lori can be heard denying having an involvement in the murder of J.J. and Tylee. She told Ryan that he wasn't there so he doesn't know what happened. Additionally, Lori said that J.J. and Tylee are happy and that would become clear in the afterlife.
Lori Vallow's story was told in the Netflix series 'Sins of Our Mother.'
The public can learn more about the case and Lori's various marriages in the Netflix docuseries Sins of Our Mother. In addition to Tylee and J.J. Vallow (who was the biological grandnephew of Vallow's late fourth husband, Charles Vallow), Colby Ryan is Lori's firstborn child. In the series, Colby goes into detail about what life with Vallow was really like.
Lori and her second husband, William Lagioia, welcomed Colby in 1996. Colby shared his story for the first time at length on the series, discussing his late siblings and how he learned about their disappearances, and his mom's relationship with Chad Daybell. Colby himself was dealing with legal matters of his own.
In August 2022, Colby was arrested in Mesa, Ariz., for two counts of sexual assault against an unnamed woman. The charges were dropped "without prejudice" the following month, which means that he can still be charged again in the future.
