Doomsday Mom Goes on Trial. Will She Turn on Her Guru Hubby?

After four failed marriages, Lori Vallow finally seemed to finally find her soulmate in doomsday author and former grave digger Chad Daybell.

From the moment they flew to Hawaii and tied the knot in 2019—weeks after his wife died under mysterious circumstances and while her two children were missing—they were inseparable. But when Vallow, 49, goes on trial this week, she will be doing it alone because 54-year-old Daybell requested in January that their cases be severed, and a judge agreed last month.

Legal experts say that could actually benefit Vallow as she tries to convince a jury that she is not responsible for the murders of her daughter Tylee and son J.J. and did not conspire with Daybell to kill his previous wife, Tammy. The self-proclaimed prophetess’ defense can try to pin all the blame on the man she once appeared to worship.

“When one’s life is on the table anything goes,” John Paitakes, a criminal justice professor at Rider University and a former New Jersey State Parole Board member, told The Daily Beast.

“Even though one may think that they are in love and inseparable—when it comes to saving themselves and perhaps being found not guilty or getting a lighter sentence, I have seen after 50 years working in criminal justice how fast they can turn on the co-defendant regardless of their relationship.”

That relationship is at the core of the sensational case, which unfolded across many months like a surreal saga full of apocalyptic scenarios and an ever-growing list of suspicious deaths.

Prosecutors allege that Vallow and Daybell, consumed by their doomsday-obsessed religious beliefs, planned the deaths of 7-year-old J.J. and 17-year-old Tylee, whom they referred to as “zombies.” Then they allegedly plotted to kill Tammy Daybell for insurance and Social Security funds.

Jury selection in Vallow’s portion of the case begins Monday at the Ada County Courthouse. Hundreds of residents have been summoned and the process is expected to take several days.

The trial itself is expected to last six weeks and will be closely watched around the world; the case has already spawned a documentary, podcasts, and thousands of lurid headlines. If convicted, Vallow faces a maximum sentence of life in prison since the judge took the death penalty off the table last month. Daybell, whose trial will be set after Vallow’s is completed, may face the death penalty.

“I think separating the two cases really helped both Lori and Chad,” Rich Robertson, a private investigator who has been tracking the case since he was hired by the estranged husband of Vallow’s niece in 2019, told The Daily Beast. “Now, the defense just has to focus on picking apart the prosecution’s case, which will be methodical and focus on what—like what happened to the kids for example—more than why behind the murders.”

Vallow and Daybell first met in 2018 after she became a fan of the doomsday novels he wrote for a largely Mormon audience. A love affair prompted her to move from Arizona to Idaho, where he lived with his wife.

J.J. and Tylee vanished that fall. She was last seen on a Sept. 8 trip to Yellowstone National Park with Vallow and her brother, Alex Cox. Her young half-brother, J.J., was seen days later when Vallow’s friends were visiting the house. The next morning, friends say, Vallow claimed that her son had been “acting like a zombie” and that her brother had taken him.

“I did exactly what I thought the Lord was instructing me to do,” Vallow said in a December 2019 call to a friend, Melanie Gibb, which was played in a pre-trial hearing. “I promise you I have done nothing wrong in this case.”

Vallow and Daybell initially claimed that the children were living with relatives in Arizona but otherwise stonewalled police and hightailed it to Hawaii.

Their strange behavior brought a barrage of media attention that soon exposed a slew of suspicious events—like her estranged husband’s death at the hands of her brother and Tammy’s sudden demise—along with their extreme cult-like beliefs.

Vallow and Daybell were arrested in Hawaii in February 2020, extradited to Idaho, and eventually charged with the children's deaths. Four months later, authorities found Tylee and J.J. 's remains on Daybell’s Idaho farm.

Details of how the children died were not clear, but court documents revealed that J.J. was buried in a pet cemetery, while Tylee was dismembered and buried in a fire pit nearby. Authorities suggested that the children died around Sept. 22, 2019—and that Cox—who had died of supposedly natural causes by then—was also involved in the disposal.

“The state will put on a methodical, detailed case that will horrify people in a lot of ways but it won’t be as lurid as the stories that have come out of this whole thing,” Robertson said.

Prosecutors will also lay out the evidence they have collected to show that Vallow was part of a plot to get rid of Tammy, who was found dead in the Idaho show she shared with Daybell on Oct. 19, 2019. Before her death, prosecutors allege, Daybell increased her life insurance policy.

Investigators exhumed Tammy’s body in 2021. While authorities have not yet revealed her cause of death, her children told CBS 48 Hours that their father is being framed and that their mother died of asphyxiation.

“Asphyxiation doesn't necessarily mean smothered," Mark Daybell said. “According to my understanding, it just means the breath was interrupted. And in the end, she wasn't able to breathe. And according to that, there's more facts we need. We don't just say, 'Oh, well, bye, Chad.' No there's still love, there's still connection.”

This is not Vallow’s only criminal case. She is also facing conspiracy to commit murder charges in Arizona in connection with her previous husband’s July 2019 death. Her brother, Cox, claimed he shot Charles Vallow in self-defense; Cox died of a blood clot on Dec. 12, 2019.

Experts say the prosecution does not need to prove the motive for the slayings, but without doing so, it may be hard to convince jurors that a mother planned the deaths of her own kids.

“The jury will want an explanation from the prosecution as to why she would kill her own children,” Ambrosio Rodriguez, a Los Angeles criminal defense attorney who is not connected to the case, told The Daily Beast. “A failure to do so might be problematic for the prosecution.”

But Rodriguez notes that the prosecution has amassed a lot of evidence against Vallow, who will have to explain how she could flee to Hawaii while her children were supposedly missing. Her behavior, Rodriguez said, “is a piece of evidence that will haunt her.”

Paitakes said the defense may try to lean into the fact that Vallow was deemed declared mentally unfit to stand trial for nearly a year before she was deemed “restored to competency and fit to proceed” last April.

“I think the mental competency issue is the best defense based on prior psychological exams which have gone back and forth,” Paitakes said.

Rodriguez said he would expect Vallow to take the stand in an attempt to convince the jury that she would never hurt her children.

“I expect her to testify and be crucified by the prosecution during cross-examination,” he added. “This case will be a roller coaster.”