The harrowing, tragic tale of the murders of JJ Vallow and Tylee Ryan made national headlines, first as a disappearance, then something more unseemly in whispers about doomsday cults and zombies. And in a three-part Netflix docuseries, “Sins of Our Mother,” director Skye Borgman attempts to separate fiction from heartbreaking reality.
The series, out Wednesday, is a mix of interviews, news footage, courtroom video and audio files, from podcasts to secretly recorded calls. In grainy, black-and-white police video, Charles Vallow pleads for help to save his children from his wife who has “lost her mind.” Cellphone video films Chad Daybell speaking about the end times during a conference. Lori Vallow herself talks, of the coming apocalypse on a podcast where she first interacted with Daybell, and of the need for trust to friends and relatives who know something is wrong.
Across just more than two hours, “Sins of Our Mother” tries to figure out where it all went wrong, why a religious belief system gave way to radical fanaticism and how 7-year-old JJ and 16-year-old Tylee ended up dead, buried and burned in a shallow grave in Daybell’s backyard in June 2020.
