‘Doomsday mom’ Lori Vallow jailed for life for murdering two of her children
A woman dubbed the “doomsday mom” has been jailed for life without the possibility of parole for the murders of two of her children and conspiring to kill her husband’s ex-wife.
Lori Vallow, 50, had become obsessed with a religious apocalypse, prosecutors in the US said.
The mother, from Idaho, believed her children had to be destroyed so they could go to heaven, her trial heard.
She allegedly believed her son and daughter were zombies – and that she was a goddess sent to usher in the Biblical apocalypse.
She was handed three life sentences, one for each of the charges, to be served one after the other.
The disappearance of two of her children – seven-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow and his sister Tylee Ryan, aged 16 – in September 2019 transfixed the nation and sparked a months-long search.
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It was not until June 2020 that police found the mutilated remains of JJ and Tylee at a property in rural Idaho that belonged to Vallow’s fifth husband, Chad Daybell, who is awaiting trial on the same murder charges.
After a lengthy trial, Vallow was convicted of their murders in May this year, along with conspiracy to murder her husband Daybell’s ex-wife, Tammy.
Joshua ‘JJ’ Vallow and Tylee Ryan. Pic: Fremont County Sheriff’s Office
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Vallow appeared at Fremont County Courthouse in St Anthony, Idaho, on Monday for sentencing.
Before her sentencing, she addressed the court claiming that a near-death experience allowed her to communicate with the “spirit world”.
She told the judge that she knew “for a fact” that her children and Tammy Daybell were happy in heaven. She said Tylee and JJ have communicated with her that they are happy after their deaths.
Son of ‘doomsday mom’ addresses court
Vallow 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 Monday’s sentencing hearing, Judge Steven W Boyce heard testimony from several representatives of the victims, including Vallow’s only surviving son, Colby Ryan.
In a statement read by a lawyer, Mr Ryan said: “My siblings and father deserve so much more than this. I want them to be remembered for who they were, not just a spectacle.
“I’ve lost the opportunity to share life with the people I love the most.”
Vallow faces two other cases in Arizona. Pic: AP
Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell married in November 2019, about two weeks after his previous wife Tammy was killed.
While it was initially thought that Tammy had died of natural causes, an autopsy later revealed she had been asphyxiated.
When the two children JJ and Tylee were reported missing, Vallow and Daybell had told police that JJ was in Arizona with a family friend – and Tylee had died a year before and had been attending a university.
JJ’s body was wrapped in rubbish bags, his arms bound in front of him with duct tape. Tylee’s remains were charred.
Donald Trump has said he is considering “taking away” the US citizenship of actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits a government from doing so.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, the US president said: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”
He also labelled O’Donnell, who has moved to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and said she should “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”.
O’Donnell responded on Instagram by posting a photograph of Mr Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.
“You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she wrote in the caption.
“I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”
Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Donald Trump secured a second term. Pic: AP
O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January after Mr Trump had secured a second term.
She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she would only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.
O’Donnell and the US president have criticised each other publicly for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s move into politics.
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This is just the latest threat by the president to revoke the citizenship of someone he has disagreed with, most recently his former ally Elon Musk.
But the two situations are different as while Musk was born in South Africa, O’Donnell was born in the US and has a constitutional right to American citizenship.
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Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.
“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” he added.
“In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”
A farmer who fell from a greenhouse roof during an anti-immigrant raid at a licensed cannabis facility in California this week has died of his injuries.
Jaime Alanis, 57, is the first person to die as a result of Donald Trump’s Immigration Compliance and Enforcement (ICE) raids.
His niece, Yesenia Duran, posted on the fundraising site GoFundMe to say her uncle was his family’s only provider and he had been sending his earnings back to his wife and daughter in Mexico.
The United Food Workers said Mr Alanis had worked on the farm for 10 years.
“These violent and cruel federal actions terrorise American communities, disrupt the American food supply chain, threaten lives and separate families,” the union said in a recent statement on X.
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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it executed criminal search warrants at Glass House Farms facilities on Thursday.
Mr Alanis called family to say he was hiding and possibly fleeing agents before he fell around 30ft (9m) from the roof and broke his neck, according to information from family, hospital and government sources.
Agents arrested 200 people suspected of being in the country illegally and identified at least 10 immigrant children on the sites, the DHS said in a statement.
Mr Alanis was not among them, the agency said.
“This man was not in and has not been in CBP (Customs and Border Protection) or ICE custody,” DHS assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin said.
“Although he was not being pursued by law enforcement, this individual climbed up to the roof of a greenhouse and fell 30ft. CBP immediately called a medivac to the scene to get him care as quickly as possible.”
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Four US citizens were arrested during the incident for allegedly “assaulting or resisting officers”, the DHS said, and authorities were offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of a person suspected of firing a gun at federal agents.
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In a statement, Glass House, a licensed Cannabis grower, said immigration agents had valid warrants. It said workers were detained and it is helping provide them with legal representation.
“Glass House has never knowingly violated applicable hiring practices and does not and has never employed minors,” it added.
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