‘Cult mom’ Lori Vallow is pictured in her mugshot with her dyed blonde hair fading away and a smug grin on her suddenly aged face.
The image was a stark contrast to the coiffed, blonde-haired, and wrinkle-free mother she pictured herself during a five-week trial.
Vallow, 49, was found guilty last week of murdering her two children – seven-year-old JJ and 16-year-old Tylee – in 2019.
Authorities have said their mother, newly in love with Doomsday cult enthusiast Chad Daybell, avoided questions and evaded authorities after the children disappeared in September.
She then fled to Hawaii, refusing to tell the police where her children were or answering all sorts of questions, not just about her children, but about the vast web of death and deceit that seemed to engulf her family.
Vallow now faces life in prison, while Daybell’s trial remains suspended.
She has also been extradited to Arizona to face charges of conspiracy to kill her fourth husband, Charles Vallow.
Lori Vallow, 49, is pictured in a mug shot from the Madison County Jail. She was found guilty of murdering her two children last week
Vallow killed seven-year-old Joshua (JJ), left, and 16-year-old Tylee, right, avoiding authorities in the aftermath
In 2020, police discovered the remains of JJ and Tylee in shallow graves in Chad Daybell’s yard
Vallow had come under scrutiny shortly after her children’s disappearance in September 2019.
In the aftermath, local authorities had begun investigating all deaths linked to Vallow and Daybell.
Tammy Daybell was Chad’s wife when he met Lori and the mother of their children. She died suddenly in October 2019.
Initially, her death was ruled as due to natural causes.
After attention was focused on Lori and Chad, she was dug up and re-examined.
An autopsy — which Daybell had denied the night she died — shows she had died of asphyxia, the same cause of death that would later be determined for JJ.
Vallow was finally arrested in Hawaii in February 2020 – five months after JJ and Tylee were last seen alive.
The children would not be found for another four months, in shallow graves in Daybell’s backyard.
JJ was suffocated with a plastic bag, while Tylee’s corpse was so badly burned and dismembered that it’s still not clear how she was killed.
The 49-year-old was emotionless as the verdict was read in Boise, Idaho. Her defense team did not call any witnesses or provide an explanation for how the children died
Match made in hell: Lori and Chad met in October 2018 at a religious conference
In court, prosecutors argued that Vallow was motivated by “money, power, and sex,” and that she used all three of these things to achieve her twisted goals.
Jurors heard how they saw her children and Daybell’s wife as “obstacles” to the romantic life they envisioned for themselves in Hawaii.
Prosecutors said Vallow and Daybell believed — or chose to believe — that those who stood in their way were “dark” possessed individuals they called “zombies.”
“Remember, the defendant will remove any obstacle to get what she wants, and she wanted Chad Daybell,” prosecutor Lindsey Blake told jurors.
“The defendant used money, power and sex to get what she wanted.”
The couple had planned to use the life insurance money from Tammy’s death, and that Vallow continued to collect and spend the children’s Social Security and benefits after their deaths, the state argued in court.
Tylee had money. Lori wanted it and that’s why Tylee’s gone,” Blake said.
She described JJ as a “vibrant, fun-loving one.” But caring for JJ, who had autism, took “time, effort and energy.”
Caring for JJ “stripped the defendant from doing what she wanted to do — spend her time with Chad Daybell,” Blake said.
Lori was also found guilty of conspiracy to murder in the death of Chad’s wife, Tammy, who died of asphyxia in October 2019.
Blake also said Vallow and Daybell felt they should destroy the bodies because the kids were “dark” and “zombies.”
The couple had believed they could judge people as “light or dark” and “deliver” evil spirits from black people, jurors heard. They were convinced that the Second Coming of Christ was imminent and that only 144,000 people could be saved.
“She was here on a religious mission to collect the 144,000, so she had to spend her time and energy there,” the prosecution said.
“What she did on Earth no longer counted for her,” Blake added. Vallow and Daybell used their twisted religious ideas to “justify” their actions.
“The common theme was that the body must be destroyed,” Blake said. “The defendant and Chad used their self-professed religious teachings to justify their actions to others — their actions from affair to murder.”
When the children’s bodies were eventually found, authorities said, JJ’s body was wrapped in garbage bags with duct tape tying his arms in front of him and wrapping them around his head.
He had suffocated in a plastic bag.
All that was left of Tylee in the meantime was charred remains.
“You’ll hear it explained as a mass of bone and tissue,” Blake said. “That’s what was left of this beautiful young woman.”
Tylee’s DNA was later found on a pick and shovel in a shed on the property.
The last known photo of Tylee, center, on a family trip to Yellowstone National Park with JJ, left, her uncle Alex Cox, right, and her mother Lori, in September 2019
However, Vallow’s attorney pointed the finger at her doomsday preacher husband in a last-ditch effort to influence the jury.
Jim Archibald tried to paint a picture of Vallow as a loving mother who was seduced by Daybell and lied to protect him.
Jim Archibald outlined the defense case, saying that Vallow “believes in life after death” and “believes she will see her deceased children.”
He accepted that she was interested in the “end times,” adding, “In this country we are allowed to worship however we choose. The evidence will show that when Lori and her friends met Chad Daybell – an author on religious subjects – her beliefs began to change, to change.”
Archibald told jurors ‘there you come in this story’.
‘What happened? How did these children die? Who was involved? When did it happen? Where did it happen? Why did it happen?’ he said.
He said that Vallow was a “good, responsible mother” and that motivated Kay Woodcock to ask Vallow to adopt JJ with Charles Vallow in 2014.
“The evidence will show that people were attracted to her,” Archibald said, including her “beautiful smile, her lively personality, her fun-loving, fun-loving personality.” People wanted to be around her.’
He claimed she had no idea that Daybell and her brother Alex had “crammed her kids’ bodies in Chad’s backyard.”
But the jury was not convinced and she faces life in prison.
Charles Vallow (left, with wife Lori) was shot dead in Arizona in July 2019 by Alex Cox, his wife’s brother. Cox died in December 2019. In July 2021, Lori Vallow was charged by a grand jury with conspiracy to kill her husband.
In the meantime, Vallow has been extradited to Arizona to face charges of conspiracy to commit murder in the death of her fourth husband, Charles Vallow, who died in July 2019.
Her brother Alex Cox fired the fatal shot, but a grand jury in June 2021 found Vallow should be charged with one count of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.
They argued that before Charles Vallow died, he filed for divorce.
Cox was never charged after shooting him to death, and pleaded self-defense.
Maricopa County Attorney Allister Adel said the two-year gap between the crime and the decision to charge Lori Vallow was due to the complexity of the case.
He said in July 2021 that “complex, difficult cases of this nature take time to properly investigate and resolve.”