Lori Vallow Daybell, the Idaho woman notorious for her ‘doomsday’ beliefs, was given a life sentence without parole on Monday for the murder of her two young children. Her recent prison booking photo showed her with a faint smirk, taken after her sentencing where she made outrageous claims about her children not being dead.
Daybell, 50, was found guilty in May for the murder of her children Joshua “J.J.” Vallow, aged 7, and Tylee Ryan, aged 16. She was also convicted of plotting to kill Tammy Daybell, the first wife of her fifth husband, Chad Daybell. The children disappeared in late 2019, around the same time Tammy Daybell was found dead.
Chad Daybell, 54, is also facing charges in relation to the deaths of Tylee, J.J., and Tammy. However, he will be tried separately and has pleaded not guilty.
During Lori’s trial, the courtroom was exposed to the chilling details of the couple’s religious beliefs, which involved end-of-world prophecies and their self-proclaimed roles as chosen leaders for humanity through the apocalypse., reported People.
Lori professed to the courtroom that she had communicated with her deceased children and Tammy, as well as Jesus Christ and angels, through a near-death experience. She asserted that J.J.’s spirit had visited her, absolving her of wrongdoing and claiming to be content in his afterlife.
Previously in the trial, Melanie Gibb, a former friend of Lori who testified, revealed that Lori had declared her children to have ‘dark’ spirits. According to Gibb, Lori categorized people on a scale of ‘light’ and ‘dark,’ with the ‘light’ being those who were aligned with Jesus Christ and the ‘dark’ those associated with Satan. Lori had told Gibb that her children had recently turned ‘dark.’
The couple fled to Hawaii in 2019 when police tried to search Chad’s property. In early 2020, child services from Idaho issued court orders for the couple to surrender their children to the state. However, in June, the remains of J.J. and Tylee were unearthed on Chad’s property.
Judge Steven Boyce branded Lori’s crimes as “heinous and egregious” during her sentencing on Monday, criticizing her for her lack of remorse and accusing her of following a “bizarre religious rabbit hole.”
