The Vallow–Daybell murders were a series of killings including child murder, filicide, and spousal murder committed by American couple Lori Vallow Daybell and Chad Daybell. Chad and Lori led a small, apocalyptic religious group that was described in the media as a doomsday cult. Media coverage initially focused on the pair's religious beliefs, but investigations revealed that the murders also had a financial motive. Ultimately, Chad, Lori, and Lori's brother, Alex Cox, killed four people and attempted to kill another.
At the time of the murders, Chad and Lori were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. However, their beliefs had deviated significantly from mainstream Mormonism. Chad, an apocalyptic author and publisher, claimed to have visions of the future and prophesied that the world would end in July 2020. Lori, dubbed "Doomsday Mom" in later media coverage, adopted his fringe beliefs; she became convinced that she was a deity destined to play a role in the coming apocalypse and that her family was obstructing her mission.
The killings began in July 2019, when Cox shot Lori's estranged husband, Charles Vallow. Lori's daughter Tylee Ryan and adopted son J.J. Vallow were last seen alive in September 2019, near their home in Rexburg, Idaho. Their remains were found on June 9, 2020, on a property owned by Chad. In October 2019, Lori's nephew-in-law Brandon Boudreaux survived a murder attempt, just weeks before Chad's wife, Tammy, was murdered at their Rexburg home. Lori and Chad married two weeks after her death.
The case was set in motion by the children's disappearances. In late November 2019, after police questioned Lori about J.J.'s whereabouts, she and Chad abruptly vacated their homes in Idaho and left for Hawaii. As police searched for J.J., they discovered that Tylee was also missing. A connection was then made between the children's disappearance, the deaths of Charles and Tammy, and the murder attempt on Brandon Boudreaux. On February 20, 2020, Lori was arrested for desertion and non-support of her children. The discovery of their remains on June 9 the same year led to Chad's arrest. Cox, who the authorities believe to have participated in all crimes, died before he could be arrested. On May 25, 2021, Chad and Lori were charged with the first-degree murders of Tylee, J.J., and Tammy. Prosecutors said that the couple had conspired with Cox to commit the murders in part due to their apocalyptic beliefs, but also to remove obstacles to their affair and to collect life insurance money and the children's Social Security benefits.
Lori and Chad were tried separately. Lori was found guilty of all charges related to the killings of Tylee, J.J., and Tammy, and given multiple life sentences without the possibility of parole. Chad was also found guilty of all charges and sentenced to death. After her sentencing in Idaho, Lori was extradited to Arizona to stand trial there twice, for the murder and attempted murder of Charles Vallow and Brandon Boudreaux, respectively. She was again found guilty and given two additional life sentences. Both Chad and Lori have appealed their sentencings.
Background Chad Daybell
Chad Daybell was born on August 11, 1968, in Provo, Utah, to a Mormon family and grew up in the neighboring city of Springville. He received a B.A. in journalism from Brigham Young University. Chad married Tamara "Tammy" Douglas on March 9, 1990; they had five children.
Chad worked for a time as a copy editor for the Ogden Standard-Examiner. At various times during and after his studies, he supported himself by working as a gravedigger, then as the cemetery sexton for Springville.
After making a deal with a religious press, he started writing full time. In 2004, Chad and his wife founded a printing press, which Daybell used to disseminate his beliefs regarding the end times. The press was not initially successful, but eventually found an audience among Mormon preppers who believed the second coming was imminent. In addition to his own work, he published similarly themed works by other authors. Chad became a popular author and speaker in some radical Mormon circles.
Chad's novels often depicted apocalyptic and dystopian futures. In a memoir called Living on the Edge of Heaven, he claimed to have had two near-death experiences that allowed him to receive supernatural visions from "beyond the veil". Daybell asserted that none of his books were fiction, but rather depicted coming events. Chad was also a regular contributor to Another Voice of Warning, a Mormon forum where he would discuss his near-death experiences and thoughts on the future. Over time, Chad's religious beliefs became increasingly extreme. In 2013, he began prophesying there would be earthquakes, war, and destruction in the Americas.
In 2015, Chad claimed he heard the "voice" telling him to relocate to Rexburg, Idaho. He and Tammy moved there from Springville that June. Chad said that he had had a vision that Utah would be devastated by an earthquake in 2015.
Lori Vallow Daybell
Lori Ryan Daybell, also referred to as Lori Vallow Daybell, was born Lori Cox on June 26, 1973, in Loma Linda, California. She grew up in a Mormon family. Her parents were tax protesters who adhered to sovereign citizen ideology and were in a conflict with the IRS for about two decades. In 1992, at the age of 19, Lori married her high school boyfriend, but the marriage ended in divorce shortly afterwards. In October 1995, Lori married again and had a son named Colby in 1996, before divorcing in 1998. She worked for some time as a hairdresser. In 2004, she was a contestant in both the Mrs. Texas beauty pageant and on the game show Wheel of Fortune.
In 2001, Lori married Joseph Anthony Ryan Jr., who gave his name to Colby. The couple's daughter, Tylee, was born in 2002. Lori and Ryan divorced in 2005, subsequently engaging in a bitter custody battle during which she accused him of sexually assaulting both children. Ryan eventually lost equal custody. Lori's brother Alex Cox attacked Ryan in 2007, claiming he had been abusive to Lori and the children; Cox served ninety days in jail for the incident. In 2020, Colby claimed during an interview that as a child, he had been sexually abused by Ryan.
In 2018, Ryan was found dead in his apartment from what was determined to be arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease. After Lori's arrest in 2020, and after a recording surfaced in which she mentioned wanting to kill Ryan "like Nephi killed", police reviewed Ryan's death. Nothing was found to suspect foul play.
In February 2006, Lori married Leland Charles Anthony Vallow, who commonly went by the name Charles. In 2013 the couple adopted Charles' grandnephew, Joshua Jaxon "J.J." Vallow, as the boy's birth parents were unable to care for him. Because of his biological parents' substance abuse, J.J. was born with drugs in his system and spent time in the neonatal intensive care unit. As a baby, he was taken care of for nearly a year by his grandparents, Kay (Charles' sister) and Larry Woodcock, before being adopted by Charles. J.J. was eventually diagnosed with autism.
Vallow and Daybell meet Around 2015, Lori became interested in Chad Daybell's Standing in Holy Places series of books. Over the next few years she became increasingly invested in radical religious beliefs, reading books about near-death experiences and listening to podcasts by excommunicated Mormons.
In October 2018, together with Melanie Gibb and Zulema Pastenes, whom she had recently befriended, Lori attended a "Preparing a People" event where she met Chad for the first time. Gibb and Pastenes both said that Lori had behaved in a very flirtatious manner with Chad at the conference. Chad claimed to Lori that they had been married in multiple previous lifetimes. They started communicating privately afterwards.
After their initial meeting, Lori's husband went on a business trip, giving her the opportunity to hold a small overnight gathering at her home. Chad and Gibb were among the attendees, with Chad captivating Lori and the group by sharing his unique, Mormon-influenced, beliefs. Lori developed a strong attachment to Chad and his teachings. The two eventually became lovers.
On December 5, 2018, Chad and Lori appeared together on the Preparing a People podcast episode "Time to Warrior Up". The two were featured in several other episodes.
A religious group formed around Chad and his teachings. He and Lori told their followers that they belonged to the "Church of the Firstborn," of which Chad was the leader. The group included Lori's niece, Melani Boudreaux; Gibb; Cox; and Pastenes, who eventually became Cox's girlfriend and then wife. Gibb and Lori co-hosted a podcast called "Feel the Fire".
Lori and Chad's beliefs Reincarnation – a concept which is not accepted by the LDS Church – played a key part in Chad's religious views. He claimed to have lived thirty-one previous lives on different planets and that Lori had lived twenty-one separate lives, five of which coincided with his own experiences on Earth. Lori eventually told Gibb that she and Chad were sealed due to their previous marriages in their past lives, despite their respective spouses still being alive. When Gibb suggested that Chad and Lori should divorce their spouses, Lori told her they were "not allowed to" because of information they were receiving "from the other side of the veil".
Chad also claimed to be a reincarnation of James the Less, that Lori had been James' wife under the name "Elena" and that in other past lives Lori had been Mary French, the great-grandmother of Joseph Smith, as well as the wife of the prophet Moroni. According to Chad, past lives were "multiple probations" on Earth. This belief is shared by some Mormon fundamentalist groups who consider that such "probations" are necessary for one to reach exaltation.
Chad categorized people as "light" or "dark" based on his assigning them an affiliation with Jesus Christ or Satan. He and Lori employed a unique "scoring system" for good and evil, assigning every person a rating from "light" to "dark." According to their belief system, "dark" people were possessed by evil spirits. The group often joined in "castings," ceremonies where they would try to cast away evil spirits through prayers and scripture readings. They claimed that in some cases "possessed" people could become "zombies," and that the only way to banish a zombie was to kill the person. Seven women within the group, including Lori and Zulema Pastenes, called themselves the "seven gatherers" and would do "castings" together, sometimes via Zoom.
Chad and Lori also scored people on a "vibration" scale, and deemed those having enough "vibrations" to possess special powers, or to be translated. Their beliefs also included teleportation and "dark and light portals." Chad claimed that he could create such supernatural "portals" which he used to "interact spiritually" with Lori, receive revelations, and travel to other realms.
Chad predicted that the world would come to an end on July 22, 2020. He told his followers that he was guided by angels and could see hidden truths, while Lori claimed to have direct communications with God and Jesus. Lori came to believe that she was an "exalted goddess" with visionary powers, and that she and Chad were destined to lead the 144,000 people who would survive when the world ended. Zulema Pastenes later told investigators that Lori believed that, as an exalted being, she couldn't be held responsible for her actions on Earth.