'Doomsday mom' Lori Vallow Daybell now faces two more life sentences
Lori Vallow Daybell, the Idaho woman serving life in prison for the murders of her two youngest children and a romantic rival, was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences in Arizona for conspiring to kill her estranged husband and attempting to murder her niece's ex-husband.
Vallow Daybell, often referred to as "Doomsday mom" because of the apocalyptic beliefs that fueled her string of grisly murders, was convicted earlier this year for the murder of her former husband, Charles Vallow, and the attempted murder of Brandon Boudreaux in 2019.
"The amount of contemplation, calculation, planning and manipulation that went into these crimes is unparalleled in my career," Judge Justin Beresky said before sentencing Vallow Daybell on July 25. "It will take an act of god for you to go free."
Vallow Daybell is already serving multiple life sentences in Idaho for the 2019 murders of her children, Joshua 'J.J.' Vallow and Tylee Ryan, along with the killing of her current husband's former wife, Tammy Daybell. Her two life sentences in Arizona will run consecutively.
Family members of Vallow Daybell's victims testified for more than an hour at the July 25 sentencing hearing about harm she caused. Her only surviving child, Colby Ryan, described the moments when he found out his father had been shot and killed and then later, when he learned his 7-year-old and 16-year-old siblings had been murdered.
"I had to do something I've never done, and that was fight to stay alive after the pain," Ryan said.
Boudreaux, the victim of attempted murder, told the judge he "choose to forgive" Vallow Daybell, but would "never feel safe if she has freedom."
Prosecutors alleged Vallow Daybell and her husband, Chad Daybell, believed an apocalypse was imminent and people around them were evil zombies. They accused Vallow Daybell of manipulating her brother, Alex Cox, and husband, Chad Daybell, into carrying out the crimes to cash in on her husband's life insurance policy and Social Security survivor benefits from her children.
Victims Charles Vallow and Brandon Boudreaux
Vallow Daybell met her current husband, Chad Daybell, in 2018 at a religious conference in Utah. The pair bonded over their shared religious beliefs, including that an apocalyptic doomsday would soon arrive.
Shortly after, in 2019, Charles Vallow filed for divorce, claiming that his wife had threatened to kill him and believed she was a godlike figure preparing for the second coming of Christ.
Vallow was shot at Vallow Daybell's rental home in Chandler, Arizona, in July 2019. Months later, her niece's ex-husband, Brandon Boudreaux, was shot at while driving in Gilbert, Arizona. The shooting was later tied to Vallow Daybell's brother who had begun to share her apocalyptic beliefs.
Boudreaux survived the shooting.
The murders of Joshua Vallow, Tylee Ryan and Tammy Daybell
Vallow Daybell moved in September 2019 with her children to the small Idaho town where Chad Daybell lived with his then-wife, Tammy Daybell. Weeks after the move, Tammy Daybell was found dead.
Relatives of Vallow Daybell soon after told police they had not seen her children in awhile.
Vallow Daybell was arrested on child abandonment counts in Hawaii in February 2020. She was extradited to Idaho, and in early June of that year, authorities found the bodies of her children buried on Chad Daybell's property.
(This story has been updated to add new information and because an earlier version included an inaccuracy.)
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