Lori Vallow Daybell booking photo
If you followed true crime news at all between 2019 and 2023, you already know the name Lori Vallow Daybell. But even if you caught snippets here and there, the full picture of this case is somehow even more disturbing than the headlines let on. It has everything from a doomsday cult, to missing children, to multiple suspicious deaths, to a love story that turned into something truly dark. Let’s walk through the whole thing.
Who Is Lori Vallow?
Lori Vallow grew up in a fairly ordinary American household and by most accounts seemed like a normal woman for much of her adult life. She was married multiple times before things took a sharp turn. She had children from different relationships, was active in her faith community, and presented herself as a devoted mother.
She was also, by the time things started unraveling, deeply involved in fringe religious beliefs that centered around the idea that certain people were “zombies” or “dark spirits” who had taken over the bodies of real humans. This belief system, as investigators would later piece together, appeared to justify some deeply troubling actions.
Enter Chad Daybell
Chad Daybell was a Utah author who wrote a series of fiction books with themes around the end of times, near-death experiences, and religious prophecy. He also ran a small publishing company and had developed a following among people drawn to fringe interpretations of Latter-day Saint theology.
Lori and Chad met through religious circles and quickly became close. The problem was that both of them were married to other people at the time. Chad’s wife, Tammy Daybell, died suddenly in October 2019. She was 49 years old and initially her death was ruled as natural causes. Just two weeks later, Lori and Chad got married in Hawaii.
That quick turnaround raised eyebrows, but the worst was still coming.
The Children Go Missing
Lori had two children who disappeared around this time: her 7-year-old daughter JJ Vallow and her 16-year-old daughter Tylee Ryan. In September 2019, family members last saw the children. By late fall, relatives and Lori’s former sister-in-law were trying to get answers about where the kids were.
When police in Idaho eventually did a welfare check in late 2019, Lori told them the children were with relatives in Arizona. That turned out to be false. The children were missing, and nobody seemed to know where they were.
A massive public search effort took off. The case got national media coverage. Photos of JJ and Tylee circulated everywhere. Lori and Chad eventually fled to Hawaii, where police tracked them down in early 2020.
Lori was charged with desertion and nonsupport of her children. She did not cooperate with investigators about the children’s whereabouts.
What Investigators Found
In June 2020, investigators searched Chad Daybell’s property in Salem, Idaho. What they found there ended the search but confirmed everyone’s worst fears. The remains of both JJ Vallow and Tylee Ryan were buried on the property.
Tylee’s remains showed signs of fire damage and dismemberment. JJ had been wrapped in plastic bags before being buried. Both children had been there for months while their mother was asked repeatedly about their well-being.
The discovery was a gut punch to anyone who had been following the case and hoping for a different outcome.
A Trail of Dead Adults Too
What makes this case even more unsettling is that the deaths did not begin or end with the children. Here is a look at some of the people connected to Lori and Chad who died under suspicious or unusual circumstances.
Tammy Daybell was Chad’s wife, who died just weeks before he married Lori. After the children’s remains were found, her body was exhumed. The cause of death was changed from natural causes to homicide by asphyxiation.
Charles Vallow was Lori’s fourth husband and JJ’s adoptive father. He was shot and killed in July 2019 at their home in Arizona. Lori’s brother, Alex Cox, pulled the trigger and claimed self-defense. No charges were filed against Alex at the time.
Alex Cox himself died in December 2019 from what was ruled a blood clot. His death came just months after he shot Charles Vallow. Investigators later looked into his death as part of the broader investigation.
Brandon Boudreaux was the ex-husband of Lori’s niece. He survived a shooting in which someone fired at his car in October 2019. He was not injured, but the incident was connected to the broader investigation.
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The Beliefs Behind It All
A big part of what investigators and journalists tried to untangle was the religious belief system that seemed to drive at least some of what happened. Chad Daybell had developed teachings around the idea that people could be assigned “light” or “dark” ratings, and that some individuals had been taken over by evil spirits, effectively making them no longer truly alive.
Lori reportedly came to believe that her son JJ, her daughter Tylee, and her husband Charles had all been taken over by dark spirits. In her worldview, according to testimony and documents from the case, this apparently justified the violence that followed.
It is a deeply disturbing element of the story because it shows how dangerous fringe belief systems can become when they are used to dehumanize the people closest to you, including your own children.
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The Legal Proceedings
Lori Vallow Daybell went through a competency evaluation process and was found mentally incompetent to stand trial in 2021. She was sent to a psychiatric facility for treatment. By 2023, she had been restored to competency and stood trial in Idaho.
The trial in Idaho covered the murders of JJ Vallow, Tylee Ryan, and Tammy Daybell. Lori was found guilty on all counts in May 2023. She was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Chad Daybell faced his own separate trial. He was tried on charges including murder for the deaths of all three victims. His trial took place in 2024. He was found guilty and sentenced to death.
How Did Nobody Notice Sooner?
One of the questions people kept asking throughout this case was how two children could go missing for months before anything was done. The answer is complicated.
Part of it came down to the transient lifestyle Lori and her family had been living, moving between Arizona, Idaho, and Hawaii. Part of it was that Lori had plausible-sounding explanations when people asked about the kids. And part of it was simply that no single agency had the full picture until family members and the public started pushing hard for answers.
The case prompted conversations about how child welfare checks work across state lines and what happens when a parent just… lies.
The Bigger Picture
The Lori Vallow Daybell case is one of those true crime stories that stays with you because it touches on so many heavy themes at once. There is the failure to protect children. There is the way manipulative belief systems can take hold of people. There is the question of how someone can go from being a seemingly normal parent to someone capable of what happened to JJ and Tylee.
There are no easy answers here. What is clear is that two kids who deserved long, full lives did not get them, and the people responsible are now spending the rest of their lives behind bars or waiting on death row.
It is a hard story to sit with. But it is also one that deserves to be told and remembered, especially for the sake of JJ and Tylee.
JJ Vallow was 7 years old. Tylee Ryan was 16. They are not forgotten.
Lisa Crow contributed to this article. She is a true crime junkie and lifestyle blogger based in Waco, Texas. Lisa is the Head of Content at Gigi’s Ramblings and Southern Bred True Crime Junkie. She spends her free time traveling when she can and making memories with her large family which consists of six children and sixteen grandchildren.
