A US mother who killed her two youngest children after thinking they were zombies and attempted to kill her husband’s ex-wife has been sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Lori Vallow Daybell was sentenced on Monday for killing 7-year-old Joshua Vallow and 16-year-old Tylee Ryan, as well as conspiring to kill Tammy Daybell, her fifth husband’s previous wife. Vallow Daybell will serve three life sentences one after the other, the judge said.
The husband, Chad Daybell, is awaiting trial on the same murder charges.
Vallow Daybell also faces two other cases in Arizona — one on a charge of conspiring with her brother to kill her fourth husband, Charles Vallow, and one of conspiring to kill her niece’s ex-husband.
Charles Vallow was shot and killed in 2019, but her niece’s ex survived an attempt later that year.
At the Fremont County Courthouse in Idaho, Judge Steven Boyce heard from several representatives of the victims, including Vallow Daybell’s only surviving son, Colby Ryan.“Tylee will never have the opportunity to become a mother, wife or have the career she was destined to have.
JJ will never be able to grow and spread his light with the world the way he did,” Mr Ryan wrote in a statement read by prosecuting attorney Rob Wood.
“My siblings and father deserve so much more than this. I want them to be remembered for who they were, not just a spectacle.”
Mr Ryan also wrote about his own grief.
“I’ve lost the opportunity to share life with the people I love the most. I have lost my sister, father, brother and my mother,” he wrote. “I pray for healing for everyone involved, including those who took the lives of everyone we loved.”
Mr Wood said: “A defendant who is willing to murder her own children is willing to murder anyone.
“Society can only be protected from this defendant by a sentence of life in prison without parole.”
Vallow Daybell was committed multiple times for treatment to make her mentally competent for the court proceedings.
But Mr Wood said there is no evidence that her crimes were impacted by her “alleged mental illness” — which includes delusional disorder with grandiose features, according to reports referenced in court.
“The evidence is overwhelming that she did know right from wrong,” Mr Wood said, noting testimony from several people who said she lied to them about the deaths
.In July 2019, Vallow Daybell’s brother, Alex Cox, shot and killed her estranged husband, Charles Vallow, in a suburban Phoenix home. Cox told police he acted in self-defense.
He was never charged and later died of what authorities determined were natural causes.
Vallow Daybell was already in a relationship with Chad Daybell, a self-published writer of doomsday-focused fiction loosely based on Mormon teachings.
She moved to Idaho with her kids and brother to be closer to him.The children were last seen alive in September 2019.
Police discovered they were missing a month later after an extended family member became worried. Their bodies were found buried in Chad Daybell’s yard the following summer.
During the trial, experts said Tylee appeared to have been stabbed and her body burned before it was buried in a pet cemetery, Mr Wood said.
JJ’s head was wrapped in tape and plastic, asphyxiating him, Wood said, speculating that his last thoughts must have “been filled with fear and betrayal.”
Tammy Daybell’s body was bruised, suggesting she fought back as she was asphyxiated in her bed, Mr Wood said.
Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow married in November 2019, about two weeks after Daybell’s previous wife, Tammy, was killed.
Tammy Daybell initially was described as having died of natural causes, but an autopsy later showed she had been asphyxiated, authorities said.
Defence lawyer Jim Archibald argued during the trial that there was no evidence tying Vallow Daybell to the killings, but plenty showing she was a loving, protective mother whose life took a sharp turn when she met Chad Daybell and fell for his “weird” apocalyptic religious claims.
He suggested that Daybell and Vallow Daybell’s brother, Alex Cox, were responsible for the deaths.
Daybell told her they had been married in several previous lives and she was a “sexual goddess” who was supposed to help him save the world by gathering 144,000 followers so Jesus could return, Archibald said.
Vallow Daybell’s former friend Melanie Gibb testified during the trial that Vallow Daybell believed people in her life had been taken over by evil spirits and turned into “zombies,” including JJ and Tylee.
