Idaho cult mom Lori Vallow told a court today that she communicates with her dead children in heaven, where they are ‘very happy and busy’, as she blamed their deaths on ‘accidents and suicide’ before being sentenced to life without parole.
Earlier this year, the judge in her case agreed to her request to have the death penalty taken off the table as punishment for prosecutors violating a court rule during the discovery phase of the trial.
Vallow was found guilty in May of killing her two youngest children, 7-year-old Joshua ‘JJ’ Vallow and 16-year-old Tylee Ryan, as well as conspiring to kill Tammy Daybell, her fifth husband´s previous wife.
The husband, Chad Daybell, is awaiting trial on the same murder charges. He is scheduled to stand trial in April 2024.
Today, Vallow’s attorneys asked for a 20 year minimum, begging the judge to give her ‘hope’ and claiming the world will be a better place with ‘hope’.
She told the court she was ‘friends’ with Tammy, who is also ‘extremely busy in heaven’, and said all three regularly visit her. She also claimed to have died and gone to heaven herself in 2002.
‘Jesus knows me and Jesus understands me. I mourn with all of you who mourn my children and Tammy.
Lori Vallow dries her tears as her attorney asks the judge for a 20-year sentence on Monday
Lori Vallow in court today to be sentenced for murdering her two children in 2019
‘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 of medications happen.
‘I have access to heaven and the spirit world. I have had many communications from people now living in heaven, including my children, my sisters, my aunts and my uncle and my grandparents.
‘I’ve had many communications with Jesus Christ and our heavenly parents, and many angelic visitors.
‘Because of these communications I know for a fact that my children are happy and busy in the spirit world. I know my friend Tammy Daybell is also very happy and extremely busy.’
Invoking Martin Luther King Jr., he said: ‘Lori is the most hated woman in America but that hate will never bring about peace. MLK Jr. once said hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that. How do we stop the hurt pain and loss?’
He called her a ‘misunderstood person’ who at her core was loving.
‘We saved her life and that is a win for all humanity. If you give her fixed life, you will have thrown her away.
‘If we give her hope, we protect society by keeping her behind bars until her 70s, where she has the incentive to be a model prisoner.
‘Over time, she changes her behavior and she helps other inmates. She becomes a better person.
‘What do we have to lose by letting a woman in her 70s go before a parole board?
‘We ask the court to show mercy and look to the future. We ask the court for a 20-year fixed term with life indeterminant.’
Lori Vallow, 50, was convicted of murder in the deaths of 16-year-old Tylee Ryan and 7-year-old JJ Vallow, and conspiring to kill her husband Chad Daybell’s previous wife Tammy Daybell
JJ Vallow and Tylee Ryan vanished in September 2019. Their bodies were found buried in Daybell’s backyard in June 2020
‘If we give her hope, we protect society by keeping her behind bars until her 70s, where she has the incentive to be a model prisoner.
‘Over time, she changes her behavior and she helps other inmates. She becomes a better person.
‘What do we have to lose by letting a woman in her 70s go before a parole board?
‘We ask the court to show mercy and look to the future. We ask the court for a 20-year fixed term with life indeterminant.’
Earlier, JJ’s ‘This all began with greed for a $1million life insurance policy. I would have given her the money. She could have let them live. They could have been with us living happy lives, instead she took it all away.
‘She is a money-hungry, power-mongering monster.’
Vallow also faces two other cases in Arizona – one on a charge of conspiring with her brother to kill her fourth husband, Charles Vallow, and one of conspiring to kill her niece’s ex-husband. Charles Vallow was shot and killed in 2019, but her niece’s ex survived an attempt later that year.
Monday’s sentencing will take place at the Fremont County Courthouse in St. Anthony, Idaho. Judge Steven W. Boyce is expected to hear testimony from several representatives of the victims, including Vallow’s only surviving son, Colby Ryan.
The case began in July 2019, when Vallow’s brother, Alex Cox, shot and killed her estranged husband, Charles Vallow, in a suburban Phoenix home.
The ‘charred remains’ of Tylee Ryan, 16, and JJ Vallow, 7, were found at the couple’s home in Salem, Idaho. Pictured: Investigators searching the property on June 9, 2020
Cox told police he acted in self-defense.
He was never charged in the case and died later that year of what authorities determined were natural causes.
Vallow was already in a relationship with Chad Daybell, a self-published author who wrote doomsday-focused fiction loosely based on Mormon teachings. She moved to Idaho with her kids and brother to be closer to him.
The children were last seen alive in September 2019. Police discovered they were missing a month later after an extended family member became worried. Their bodies were found buried in Chad Daybell’s yard the following summer.
Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow married in November 2019, about two weeks after Daybell’s previous wife, Tammy, was killed.
Tammy Daybell initially was described as having died of natural causes, but an autopsy later showed she had been asphyxiated, authorities said.
Daybell, 54, was due to stand trial alongside Vallow before their cases were separated
Defense attorney Jim Archibald argued during the trial there was no evidence tying Vallow Daybell to the killings, but plenty showing she was a loving, protective mother whose life took a sharp turn when she met Chad Daybell and fell for his ‘weird’ apocalyptic religious claims.
Archibald suggested that Daybell and Vallow’s brother, Alex Cox, were responsible for the deaths.
Daybell told her they had been married in several previous lives and she was a ‘sexual goddess’ who was supposed to help him save the world by gathering 144,000 followers so Jesus could return, Archibald said.
Vallow’s former friend Melanie Gibb testified during the trial that Vallow believed people in her life had been taken over by evil spirits and turned into ‘zombies,’ including JJ and Tylee.
The family and the case was featured on the popular Netflix TV documentary, ‘Sins of our Mother.’
Netflix’s series, which features her surviving child Colby Ryan, 26, reveals the details behind the killings, and Lori’s beliefs that convinced her there was a ‘dark spirit’ inside her daughter, and the only way to ‘free the spirit is to kill the body.’
Chad and Tammy Daybell pictured before she was killed in October 2019