Lori Vallow Daybell, an Idaho mother and onetime beauty pageant contestant, was sentenced Monday to life in prison for killing two of her children in a case that included a dark religious prophecy and claims that the victims were “zombies” possessed by evil forces.
At her sentencing hearing, Vallow Daybell denied that anyone “was murdered in this case.” She said her children had visited her after their deaths and told her they were happy.
“I mourn with all of you who mourn my children and Tammy,” Vallow Daybell told the court, referring to her husband’s first wife. “Jesus Christ knows the truth of what happened here.”
Fremont County Judge Steven Boyce pointed to that denial of guilt as a factor in Vallow Daybell’s sentence, which includes no possibility of parole. He said she could have pursued legitimate options if she came to feel she could no longer care for her children.
Advertisement
Instead, he told her, “you chose the most evil and destructive path possible.”
A jury convicted Vallow Daybell in May of murdering her 7-year-old son, JJ Vallow, and her daughter, Tylee Ryan, who was days away from her 17th birthday, and of conspiring to kill her husband’s first wife, Tammy Daybell. Vallow Daybell was also found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder in her children’s deaths and of grand theft for continuing to collect after their deaths Social Security money meant for the children.
The killings and other suspicious deaths allegedly linked to Vallow Daybell captured national attention because of her bizarre religious motivations. Several books, a Lifetime movie and a Netflix documentary series attempt to tell the tale.
Prosecutors argued at trial that Vallow Daybell viewed the victims as obstacles to being with Chad Daybell and that she wanted their money, the Associated Press reported. To justify her actions, the prosecution said, Vallow Daybell used her “doomsday” religious beliefs, including that she was a goddess preparing for the end of the world.
Advertisement
Her defense attorneys countered that she was a loving mother who, despite her unusual ideology, was not involved in the killings.
Chad Daybell, who became Vallow Daybell’s fifth husband, has been implicated in all three killings and is scheduled to stand trial in April. Prosecutors in Vallow Daybell’s case said they would not speak to reporters after her sentencing, to protect Daybell’s right to a fair trial. A message left for one of Vallow Daybell’s defense attorneys Monday was not immediately returned.
Dressed in an orange-and-white-striped jumpsuit, Vallow Daybell stared at the table where she sat during her sentencing hearing — only occasionally glancing up to stare into space — as people affected by the killings shared what they had endured.
Samantha Gwilliam, Tammy Daybell’s sister, pushed back on Vallow Daybell’s reported belief that she and her husband had a special godlike status.
Advertisement
“You are not exalted beings, and your behavior makes you ineligible to be one,” Gwilliam told her, adding, “No angels are coming to rescue you.”
Family members of Tammy Daybell, Tylee and JJ told the court they should be remembered for how they lived rather than for the horrifying spectacle of their deaths.
Tammy Daybell was a librarian and teacher who went above and beyond for her students, her aunt Vicki Hoban testified. She spent the days before her death planning a book fair.
Share this articleShareColby Ryan, Vallow Daybell’s adult son, described Tylee as “funny and bold” in a statement read by one of the prosecutors. JJ, Ryan said, was silly, loving and “so smart.”
Kay Woodcock, JJ’s biological grandmother, recalled how he was born 10 weeks premature, weighing less than 3 pounds. He spent weeks in a neonatal unit. When Vallow Daybell and Charles Vallow adopted him, Woodcock said, she thought the decision was right for JJ’s future.
Advertisement
Now, she told the court, she could not understand how the same woman who had sworn to protect and care for the boy had killed him.
“It is mind-boggling,” Woodcock said, “and I don’t think I will ever be able to understand it.”
After the hearing, Woodcock celebrated Vallow Daybell’s life sentence.
“God bless America!!! She’s DONE,” Woodcock tweeted. “Bye bye loco.”
The police investigation began in fall 2019, when JJ’s grandparents became worried after more than a month of being unable to talk with him. When police arrived at Vallow Daybell’s townhouse in Rexburg, Idaho, to conduct a wellness check, the boy wasn’t there. Vallow Daybell and Daybell told officers JJ was with a family friend in Arizona.
Their story, however, wasn’t true. Investigators returned to the townhouse with a search warrant the next day, but the adults were gone. Tylee also was missing, officials learned.
Advertisement
The couple had fled to Hawaii and gotten married. As officials tried to find their children, television station Fox 10 Phoenix published video of Vallow Daybell and Daybell tanning by a pool while police served them a court order demanding that they bring their children to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare.
In June 2020, officials found the children’s remains buried on Daybell’s property in Rexburg. Duct tape had been used to bind JJ’s wrists, and his body had been wrapped in black plastic. Burned bone fragments from Tylee were found in a pet cemetery near a fire pit.
Vallow Daybell and Daybell were charged in the children’s deaths in May 2021. They also were eventually charged in the 2019 death of Daybell’s first wife, Tammy Daybell. While she initially was thought to have died of natural causes, prosecutors said at trial that an autopsy after her body was exhumed indicated she had been strangled “at the hands of another,” Salt Lake City-based television station KSL reported.
Advertisement
Vallow Daybell has also been accused of involvement in two deaths in Arizona: She was indicted in 2021 on a charge of conspiracy to commit murder in the death of her fourth husband, Charles Vallow. Another indictment against her was unsealed in May on charges of conspiring to kill her niece’s husband.
The first known reports of Vallow Daybell’s end-times ideology came in January 2019, when Charles Vallow called police to say his wife’s beliefs were becoming darker. She believed she and Daybell, the author of apocalyptic novels, had been “directed to lead 144,000 people in preparing for the end of the world,” according to records from an investigation into Charles Vallow’s death, published by Salt Lake City-based television station KUTV.
Each person had either a “light” or a “dark” scale, Vallow Daybell and Daybell reportedly believed. Anyone who opposed their ideology had a dark scale, which meant they were linked to demonic spirits. The couple considered JJ, Tylee and Charles Vallow to have had dark scales.
Amber Ferguson, Andrea Salcedo and Brittany Shammas contributed to this report.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZLuiwMiopWhqYGeAcHyWaGpqZ5ykv6p51ZqjpaenYrGixcGeo6Vlo5q7tbHNnKCnn18%3D