Lori Vallow Daybell, known as the "Doomsday Mom," is already serving time for the murder of two of her children. Now, she has been convicted of conspiring to kill her ex-husband, adding another dark chapter to a chilling chain of events. Follow The Crime Scene Weekly! You can find the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who is Lori Vallow Daybell and why is she known as the 'Doomsday Mom'?
Yes, we were first introduced to Lori Vallow back in 2019. Lori moved from Arizona with her two children, 16-year-old Tylee Ryan and her adopted son, 7-year-old J.J. Vallow, and her brother Alex Cox from Arizona to Rexburg, Idaho. Within a week of her moving there, Tylee goes missing. And a couple weeks later, JJ goes missing. JJ Vallow's grandparents filed a missing persons report.
They were calling police departments between Idaho and Arizona, starting in Arizona, and just kind of alerting them that they've not heard from JJ Vallow. And they were really concerned. They also hadn't heard anything from his sister, Tylee Ryan. So that kind of started investigators in the background looking for the two children.
And by the time we hit December of 2019, that's when the nation starts hearing about Lori Vallow.
And this happened after Lori Vallow then had moved from Arizona to Idaho with her two children and her brother, right? Why the big move?
One of the reasons Lori moves to Rexburg, Idaho, is she is having an affair with an author named Chad Daybell. He would later become her fifth husband. He lived nearby in Fremont County. And so that kind of spurred the move between her, her brother Alex Cox, her niece Melanie Boudreaux, and the two children that all moved there.
Although I do want to clarify, Melanie moves there a couple months later. She's not there initially. But so there's the children missing that gets everyone going, and they end up being found dead, right? They do, but not right away. There's a lot of... of mystery in between. And I think that mystery is what captivated the nation.
And some of that mystery was when they had gone to do a welfare report on JJ and Tylee, they did catch up with Lori and Chad and Alex initially. Lori tells them, or I think it was Alex that told them that JJ had gone to be with his grandmother. And they said, well, that's kind of funny because it's his grandmother who's looking for him.
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Chapter 2: What events led to Lori Vallow and her children moving to Idaho?
And so they go back the next morning, and this is in November, close to Thanksgiving, just before Thanksgiving of 2019. And when they go back the next morning, Lori is gone. She's cleared out. Chad is gone. Alex is gone. They had disappeared. So at the time the nation finds out that JG and Tylee are missing, we also don't know where Lori Vallow is, or we don't know where Chad Daybell is.
It's not for about another month that they turn up in Hawaii. Investigators track them to Hawaii. And suddenly we see them on their way to the beach like nothing's happened. And there's some footage with Lori sitting by the pool. And the investigators are handing her this court order that she has to produce her children, you know, by the end of January.
Like they sort of track her to Hawaii. They show up and say, hey, back in Idaho, your children are missing. You're their guardian. got to produce them somehow. Hello.
Yeah. Well, I mean, they're simply asking her, where are the kids? And that kind of became the question, where are the kids? And she wouldn't tell them anything. So then a judge got involved and the judge is saying, we need to know these kids are okay. Because at that time, nobody knows.
But there's so much concern over where these kids are and whether they're okay, because at that time, we're not really thinking that the kids were murdered. So she gets a court date and the judge says she's got to produce these kids. Lori doesn't show up. And so a short time later, they arrest her in Hawaii. So by February of 2020, she's being extradited to Idaho.
She's facing charges of child desertion and not providing for the children. Basically charges to hold her until they can figure out what happened to JJ and Tylee. Months later in June, JG and Tylee are found in Lori's fifth husband's backyard, and they're dead.
In Chad Daybell's backyard, right? New husband. What happens next?
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Chapter 3: How did Lori Vallow's children go missing and what happened in Hawaii?
So eventually, Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow are charged with the murder of JJ and Tylee.
And then I think it's worth exploring a little bit more about the backgrounds of both of these suspects at this point. So Lori Vallow, Daybell, what can you tell me about her and her sort of background?
So Lori grew up in a Mormon family, and her parents were part of the Sovereign Citizen Movement. It's kind of an extreme ideology that doesn't believe they're beholden to the U.S. government. Vallow, we know, was married about five times before. the first marriage happening when she was very young. Her longest marriage is to Charles Vallow.
It lasted 13 years, and when we interviewed her family, they felt it was the perfect match. Charles and her really hit it off. That is until she meets Chad Daybell. Chad was a doomsday author. He was living up in Rexburg, Idaho. The family originated in Springville, Utah. So Chad says in his books that he has had these two near-death experiences, and they basically allow him—
to see or get messages from the other side of the veil. Laurie's niece, Melanie Boudreau-Polowski, talks about Chad having this pendulum, and he would get messages from however this pendulum would swing, but that he could see light and dark spirits. He would eventually, if you listen to Melanie Gibb, Gloria's best friend at the time, she talks about these dark spirits were called zombies.
And in order for the spirit to be released, the body form had to die. They would just, either they would become too dark that they would die or, you know, they would have to die.
Wow. And Lori's niece said this later at trial, right? But what's just so shocking about this whole case is that this isn't even the first time Lori or Chad have been talking about this kind of thing. In fact, it's not even the first time someone in Lori's life has been found dead.
Because before Lori's kids were found dead, that fourth husband you mentioned, Charles Vallow, who she was married to for 13 years, he was also found dead. So can you walk me through how that unfolded?
Yeah, I think when you start looking at the body count, it kind of takes you back to 2019. In January of 2019, there's footage of Charles Vallow. He has just come back from a business trip, and his truck is missing from the airport. He calls Gilbert police, and he is locked out of his house. His house is dark. He's asking police to help him get into his home.
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Chapter 4: What is the background of Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell's relationship?
Charles is like, she's saying this stuff about me all the time.
recently, that she's now saying this about me. And he's concerned. He's concerned for his life and he's concerned for the safety of his children.
And so his death is actually the first in what would eventually be a series of killings.
Yes. Several months later, on July 11th in 2019, Charles Vallow goes to a home in Chandler, Arizona that he has rented for Lori. He's there to pick up JJ and take JJ to school. But somehow or another, some type of tussle happens, and Charles ends up dead, shot by Alex Cox, her brother, in self-defense. But before police can investigate... Alex and Lori are moving again.
And that's how they end up in Idaho in September of 2019. And of course, that sort of takes us full circle to when the kids first turn up missing.
All right. And we are going to take a quick break right here. So when we come back, we will pick it up there in Idaho with the murder trial over Lori's two kids.
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Chapter 5: What were the circumstances surrounding the death of Lori Vallow's fourth husband, Charles Vallow?
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We are back with ABC News and 2020 editorial producer Mary Ellen Resendez-Shuiso. So Mary Ellen, to set the stage a little bit, we're in Idaho now. Lori's kids had been missing, then later found dead in Chad Daybell's backyard. And now Chad Daybell, that author that Lori fell in love with, he and Lori are being charged with the murder of her children, among other crimes.
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Chapter 6: How were Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell charged in relation to the deaths of the children and Tammy Daybell?
When we talk about Lori Vallow, I know the cases are separate, but as far as Lori Vallow Daybell, what is her defense during this trial?
Lori gives no defense. No witnesses are called. She doesn't testify.
Which is within her rights, of course. But so the verdict comes in. Lori's convicted of first degree murder and the conspiracy to murder JJ and Tylee. She's only convicted of the conspiracy to murder Tammy Daybell. She's also convicted of grand theft by deception for apparently taking the Social Security benefits after their deaths. What did her sentence end up being?
Chapter 7: What are the details revealed in the murder trial of Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell?
She was sentenced to three life sentences without parole. We do end up hearing from her, though. At her sentencing, she tells this tale that there were no murders at all. There was only accidental deaths, suicides, medication side effects. She tells people or tells the court that JJ and Tylee are happy and they're busy in heaven. Tylee has visited her. She has told her not to worry.
And Tammy Daybell is her eternal friend, that Tammy also visits her to bring her peace and comfort. So the way Lori tells it, they don't blame her.
And then Chad is convicted of the three murders, the conspiracy of all those murders, grand theft and insurance fraud. His sentencing is different though, right?
He is sentenced to death. The death penalty actually went off the table with Lori, but it stayed on the table with Chad Daybelt. So he is right now on death row in Idaho.
Well, and the reason we're talking about this right now is because now there's been an even more recent trial with Lori Vallow Daybell. This trial happened where you are in Arizona. What was that about?
That's really interesting because it's almost like you had to go back in time. Now, remember, Charles Vallow was shot and killed back in July of 2019 before Lori's kids went missing and before they were found dead. But Charles still deserved justice. And so even though Lori is serving these three life sentences, you know, Charles and his family did deserve justice.
So the state of Arizona extradited Lori right after her 2023 trial. And she was brought here to Arizona to face the conspiracy murder charge for her fourth husband, Charles Vallow. Charles was shot and killed by Alex Cox, her brother. He admitted to shooting Charles. He claimed it was in self-defense. He told police that Charles had come after him with a bat.
Now, the family questioned this from the beginning. Charles was a minor league baseball player. And according to the family, if he swung a bat, he was going to connect. And so that's what this trial dealt with. Was that self-defense or was it basically an ambush to where they had planned to murder Charles?
Obviously, the implication is that Lori was part of the ambush then.
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