Past lives, zombies, and multiple suspicious disappearances and deaths.
The timeline of the case against Lori Vallow is seriously shocking.
In September 2019, the search began for Lori Vallow Daybell's missing children, 16-year-old
daughter Tylee and 7-year-old son Joshua, who was known as J.J. Lori and her new husband,
doomsday author Chad Daybell, were unwilling to disclose the location of the two children.
At the time, people had no idea about the extent of Chad and Lori's extreme beliefs.
Chad Daybell began his writing career authoring Mormon-infused literature through the publishing
company he founded in 2004 with his wife, Tammy. According to his personal website,
Daybell found his spiritual side after two near-death experiences when he was young. It
reportedly became his mission to publish stories of near-death experiences from
other writers connected with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Chad's ideology allegedly began to shift in 2014. His ideas diverged from mainstream
Mormon teachings, and he started to focus heavily on the end of times. That year,
Chad claimed he'd received a message from "the Spirit" to move his family from Utah to Idaho.
It would seem that Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell were bound to meet. According to Vallow's former
friend, Melanie Gibb, the pair first met at a Utah conference where he was selling his books.
Their connection was apparently immediate and electric, with Gibb telling East Idaho News,
"They started talking about these different beliefs that
are not something you learn in church."
According to Gibb, during that first meeting, when Daybell looked into Vallow's eyes,
he told her they had been married multiple times in past lives. They allegedly knew
the exact number of lives they had already lived and believed they were soulmates. Their
doomsday views fused together, but they had to remain quiet about their beliefs so as not to
be excommunicated from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. At the time,
Vallow and Daybell were both married to other people. However, they reportedly
expected that fate would conveniently cause their spouses to die in car crashes.
After having met Chad Daybell, Lori Vallow's family noticed her changing significantly. For
instance, Lori told her husband, Charles Vallow, that she was preparing for Jesus Christ's second
coming, which she said would happen in July 2020. She allegedly warned Charles not to
get in her way. Specifically, she believed that she and Chad were part of the 144,000
people specially chosen to prepare for the task, as detailed in the "Book of Revelation."
"She thinks she's a resurrected being, and a god, and a member of the 144,000."
In January 2019, Lori's husband begged her to visit a mental health facility. However,
after a short visit, she was quickly released despite claiming to be a "translated being."
Soon after, Lori suddenly disappeared after liquidating her and Charles' bank accounts
and traveled to Hawaii with Daybell. Charles subsequently filed for divorce,
requesting sole custody of their adopted son, J.J., and received an order of protection.
Sadly, Charles Vallow had good reason to fear for his life. But it wasn't Chad or
Lori who killed him. Instead, the culprit was Lori's brother,
Alex Cox, who told police he shot his former brother-in-law in self-defense. At the time,
Charles and Lori were separated and living in different homes. On July 11, Charles went to
Lori's home to pick up J.J. and Tylee. The former couple apparently got into a heated exchange, and
Lori's brother allegedly intervened to de-escalate the situation, according to a police statement.
Cox described Charles as enraged and said that Tylee came into the room with a baseball bat
to defend her mother. According to East Idaho News, Charles then took the bat and threatened
Alex with it. The kids were ushered into a car, and reports differ as to whether Lori was inside
the home when Charles was shot. Cox claimed to have then performed CPR and called the police.
"She is clearly smiling. She doesn't even ask if Charles is okay."
Charles' family were understandably suspicious about his death, and the idea that he was the
instigator. One of Charles' sons, who did not want to be identified, told Fox 10 Phoenix,
"I knew my dad was the most passive person. He hated arguing with people. He’d never been in
a fight, he was not an aggressive person in any way. I don’t believe it at all."
Meanwhile, Charles' sister, Kay Woodcock,
revealed during a news conference she believed that her brother was murdered.
In September 2019, Tylee and J.J. were seen together for the last time. The last anyone
reportedly saw Tylee was on September 8 at Yellowstone National Park. Photos released
by the FBI showed a happy family outing, which included Lori's brother, Alex. On September 23,
Lori informed J.J.'s elementary school that he would no longer be attending,
and would now be homeschooled. September 24 would have been Tylee's 17th birthday,
and suspicion arose when she didn't update her social media accounts.
Days after Tylee disappeared, Lori's friend, Melanie Gibb, visited her in Idaho. Gibb recalled
Tylee's strange absence, but Lori claimed that the 16-year-old was away at college. Lori then
allegedly said that J.J. had turned into a zombie and was hampering her "mission" with
Chad. She later lied to Gibb and said that J.J. was sent to live with his grandparents.
Another strange shooting in the family occurred in 2019, but this time it wasn't fatal. The
target was Brandon Boudreaux, the ex-husband of Lori Vallow's niece. Boudreaux was in his
driveway when he saw the Jeep that once belonged to the late Charles Vallow, with Lori's brother,
Alex Cox, inside. According to witnesses, Cox fired at Boudreaux's driver-side window.
"Someone shot my window out."
"Okay, give me a little bit more than that."
"I was just pulling in, and I noticed a Jeep Wrangler."
Boudreaux took matters into his own hands and hired a private investigator to find
the shooter. A police report later revealed that Cox, Lori,
and Chad Daybell had been involved in the attack and had retrofitted the Jeep,
including tinting the windows, intending to murder Boudreaux. However, Cox died a few
months later in December 2019, and prosecutors refused to charge Chad with attempted murder.
The police report attributed the attempted murder to Chad Daybell's
extremist ideas since he allegedly thought that Boudreaux had a "dark soul." Boudreaux
himself thought that he was targeted for his $1 million life insurance policy,
which would have gone to his ex-wife, who was also Lori's niece. She denied his allegation.
In October 2019, Tammy Daybell, Chad's wife, was attacked twice. On October 9, she called the
police after being threatened with a paintball gun by a person wearing a ski mask, but she reportedly
shrugged it off as a prankster. Two weeks later, she died in her home. Her son, Garth Daybell,
recalled hearing a thump and his agitated father's calls for help, during an interview with 48 Hours.
Tammy and Chad had five children throughout their 30-year marriage, all of whom sided with their
father over allegations that he murdered Tammy. Tammy had been suffering from an illness, and when
authorities attributed Tammy's death to "natural causes," the children decided to forgo an autopsy.
Chad also apparently claimed to have never had a physical relationship with Lori Vallow,
meaning that his children didn't believe he was responsible for their mother's death. However,
weeks earlier, Chad and Lori allegedly told friends that Tammy would die as
part of a heavenly plan for them to be together without their spouses in the way.
Mere weeks after Tammy's death, Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow married on November 5, 2019. They tied
the knot on a sunny beach in Kauai, Hawaii. The wedding involved an extensive photo shoot and
a $40 wedding ring Lori bought on Amazon weeks before Tammy's death. As reported by ABC News,
photos showed that, besides the officiant, Daybell and Vallow were the only ones at the ceremony.
When the couple arrived home, they reinvented history, telling people that Lori's daughter
Tylee had died a year earlier, or claiming that Lori never had young children in the first
place. But things changed once J.J. and Tylee's grandparents grew concerned. They hadn't heard
from J.J. in months and asked police to conduct a welfare check on the kids. On November 26,
police learned that J.J. was not home. The next day, police arrived at Lori and
Chad's home with a search warrant, but they'd already fled for Hawaii.
The case soon started to receive national attention, and the following month,
investigators decided to exhume Tammy Daybell's body for an autopsy,
later ruling it a homicide. On December 21, 2019, Chad and Lori were named "persons of
interest" in the disappearances of J.J. and Tylee and were wanted for questioning.
On January 3, 2020, the FBI, the Rexburg Police, and the Fremont County Sheriff's office combed
through every square foot of Chad's home. The search resulted in 43 items of interest that were
sent to the forensics unit. On January 7, J.J. and Tylee's grandparents, Kay and Larry Woodcock
held a press conference and announced a $20,000 award for the discovery of their grandchildren.
By the end of the month, a protection order was issued which required Lori to
physically produce J.J. and Tylee to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare or the Rexburg
Police. Lori had five days to comply with the order, but she failed to do so. Meanwhile,
Hawaii authorities issued a search warrant on Lori and Chad's home and car.
In February 2020, a new motive for Charles Vallow's murder emerged. Just days after he
was killed by her brother, Lori Vallow Daybell called Charles' life insurance providers and
asked about the $1 million policy she thought she would receive. Little did she know that
in February 2019, Charles had transferred the benefit to his sister, Kay Woodcock,
whom he wanted to become J.J.'s guardian. Woodcock believed that Lori hurt J.J. in revenge.
On February 20, Lori's stay in Hawaii came to an end when she was arrested for child desertion,
along with a few misdemeanor charges. She was held on a $5 million bond at a Kauai jail,
and eventually waived her extradition rights and was sent back to Idaho in March.
The darkest moment of the saga came on June 9, 2020, when investigators executed another search
warrant on Chad Daybell's property. They excavated his yard and found J.J. and Tylee's remains,
which were buried separately. Chad's children once again stood by him and
said they didn't believe their father was involved in the deaths of J.J. and Tylee.
"Then why were their bodies found buried in your father's backyard?"
"I don't know."
Chad was on site as the excavation occurred and was watching from his car in the driveway,
according to police reports. In a possible escape attempt, Chad tried to drive away.
Police arrested him shortly after and charged him with concealment of evidence and his bail was set
at $1 million. On June 30, Lori was also charged with destruction or concealment of evidence.
Both Lori and Chad pled "not guilty" to the charges of destruction of evidence. But on May 24,
2021, first-degree murder charges were finally brought against the couple for the deaths of
J.J. Vallow and Tylee Ryan, and the death of Tammy Daybell. The prosecution found that Lori
fraudulently collected Social Security Survivor benefits and childcare checks. And in September
2019, only a month before Tammy's death, the Daybells had maximized her life insurance policy.
On August 5, 2021, it was announced that Chad qualified for the death penalty, although he
pleaded not guilty to the murder charges. The case against Lori was delayed when she was declared
mentally unfit to stand trial and underwent treatment. But in May 2022, it was announced that
prosecutors considered Lori a danger to society and that they were seeking the maximum punishment.