A man whose mother was convicted of killing his two younger siblings said Monday he had lost the people he loved the most.
Colby Ryan, Vallow Daybell’s estranged oldest son, said in a victim impact statement that “generations have been affected by these murders.”
His mother, Lori Vallow Daybell, was to be sentenced Monday. The court hearing came more than three years after the bodies of her son, Joshua “JJ” Vallow, 7, and daughter Tylee Ryan, 16, were discovered by authorities in Vallow Daybell’s husband’s backyard in rural eastern Idaho. (Watch a live stream of the sentencing here.)
Jurors took only seven hours to reach a guilty verdict after a gripping five-week trial this spring featuring graphic images and emotional testimony from Ryan, who once shouted during a jail call with his mother, “You murdered my siblings!”
“My children will never know their uncle, their aunt or grandfather. Tylee and JJ brought so much light into their world,” Ryan said Monday. “Tylee will never have an 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 this world the way he did.”
Vallow Daybell’s sentencing will conclude a devastating case involving children found as “pieces of bone, charred flesh,” one detective testified during the trial. The deaths led to worldwide attention, scrutiny, speculation and even sensationalism as prosecutors argued the killings were “premeditated and planned.”
“This defendant violated the most sacred trust that exists in society and she did it for gain. She did it for money. A defendant who is willing to murder her own children is willing to murder anyone,” said State prosecutor Rob Wood Monday. “Society can only be protected from this defendant by a life sentence without the chance of parole.”
‘Money, power, sex’ fueled murders, prosecution said
Prosecutors argued that Vallow Daybell, 50, manipulated her late brother, Alex Cox, who fatally shot her fourth husband, Charles Vallow, to help her lover-turned-fifth husband, Chad Daybell, into carrying out the crimes. The trial centered around the theme “money, power and sex,” prosecuting attorney Rob Wood said, urging the jury to convict Lori Vallow Daybell in the death of her kids’ and her fifth husband’s previous wife, Tammy Daybell. Prosecutors argued the couple’s bizarre scheme was a plot to steal Social Security and insurance money.
“Because of the choices you made, my family lost a beloved mother, sister, aunt and daughter. She is irreplaceable,” said Samantha Gwilliam, Tammy Daybell’s sister, in a victim impact statement Monday. “I miss my sister every day. I will grieve her and now the loss of my mother for the rest of my life. I choose to forget you and as I leave this courtroom today, I choose to never think of you again.”
Vallow Daybell’s attorney countered that she was a loving, protective mother whose life worsened when she fell for the charms of a would-be cult leader Chad Daybell, and his apocalyptic religious beliefs. Chad Daybell, who will be tried separately, could face the death penalty if he’s convicted for his alleged role in the killings. It is not known when Chad Daybell’s case will begin.
Vallow Daybell claimed to friends that her children were “zombies” and she was a goddess sent to usher in the Biblical apocalypse.
Rexburg Police Detective Ray Hermosillo testified during Vallow Daybell’s trial that her son JJ’s body was bound with duct tape, wrapped in plastic and buried under a tree in Chad Daybell’s backyard. Her daughter Tylee’s body had been burned and destroyed – a mass of blood and tissue placed in a partially melted plastic bucket and buried in a part of the backyard the Daybell family called the “pet cemetery,” Hermosillo said.
“No matter how we look at what we’re doing here today. We are calculating and assigning a value to the lives of Tylee Ryan, JJ Valow, and Tammy Daybell,” Wood said. “The defendant- now a convicted murderer- by her heinous and egregious acts assigned a value of zero to each of those lives. The sentence imposed by the court today will represent the value that our community through our court places on the lives of these three victims.”
Despite the harsh sentencing anticipated, many of Vallow Daybell’s critics have said her crimes should have been eligible for the death penalty if convicted, similar to the death penalty facing Chad Daybell, said John Delatorre, a forensic and disaster psychologist who has been following the case since the beginning. District Judge Steven Boyce previously ruled against Vallow Daybell facing the death penalty if convicted.
“I think most people are somewhat disappointed that the death penalty was removed,” Delatorre said.
Vallow Daybell is also facing additional charges in Arizona related to murders and attempted murders that prosecutors say she helped plan in 2019.
In May, Vallow Daybell was indicted on charges that she conspired to kill her niece’s husband, Brandon Boudreaux. This follows a separate indictment charge in 2021 for conspiring to kill her fourth husband and JJ’s father, Charles Vallow.
Kay Woodcock, JJ’s grandmother, said Monday “marks 1,481 days that have been filled with terror” beginning with the death of her brother, Charles Vallow, in a victim impact statement during the sentencing.
“This was the beginning of her cruel campaign of terror, a campaign that resulted in the deaths of JJ and Tylee, innocent children, and Tammy, a devoted mother, grandmother and wife,” Woodcock said. “JJ and Tylee could have been with us living happy lives. Instead, she took all that away, all because she is a money-hungry power-mongering monster.”
