For more than five years, the world has watched as a bizarre saga unfolded – starting with a frantic search for Lori Vallow’s children, the tragic discovery of their bodies buried in her new husband’s backyard, and ultimately, her conviction.
Now, two lesser-known victims in the case have their shot at justice.
The so-called “doomsday cult mom,” 51, who was sentenced to life in prison in Idaho for killing her children in 2019, is now on trial in Arizona for conspiracy to commit murder in the death of her fourth husband, Charles Vallow.
Lori, who is representing herself at the trial, pleaded not guilty to the charge, along with the charge of conspiracy to murder her niece’s estranged husband Brandon Boudreaux after he narrowly escaped a drive-by shooting. The two cases will be tried separately and then Lori will be returned to Idaho to finish out her life sentences.
After several delays, the trial began on Monday with jury selection. Opening statements are slated for next week and the trial is expected to last until May 9 with Judge Justin Beresky overseeing the proceedings in Maricopa County.
“We’ve waited over four horrific years for her [Lori Vallow] to face trial of murdering my sweet, kind, generous, loving and dearest brother Charles Vallow. Your justice is finally coming,” Charles’ sister Kay Woodcock wrote on social media after Lori was extradited from Idaho to Arizona in 2023.
Woodcock, who was also the grandmother of Lori’s slain seven-year-old son JJ Vallow, has been fighting for justice for years. “Another huge step forward! We are grateful those justice wheels do indeed turn,” she wrote.
Charles’ death was the first step in a wider plot by Lori and her current husband, alleged cult leader Chad Daybell, to rid their lives of “obstacles” as they termed their spouses and her children, according to text message evidence presented at her trial last year for the murders of young JJ and 16-year-old Tylee Ryan.
In May 2023, Lori was found guilty of the children’s murders and of conspiring to kill her husband’s former wife, Tammy Daybell. She was sentenced to three life terms.
Now, the saga that has gripped the nation since Tylee and JJ went missing in 2019 is taking another major turn.
The spotlight has shifted to Arizona, the site of an earlier chapter in the trail of death allegedly left by Lori and Chad during their plunge into dangerous Doomsday beliefs.
Lori Vallow’s return to Arizona
Lori will be tried in two separate cases in Arizona on two counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, according to indictments unsealed shortly after extradition.
In one case, court records show that Lori, along with her brother Alex Cox, are accused of conspiring to kill her former husband Charles, who was shot and killed in July 2019.
In the months leading up to his death, Charles told local police he was concerned that Lori may hurt him or their children.
In the second case, Lori and Cox are accused of trying to kill her niece’s ex-husband, Boudreaux, outside his home in Gilbert, Arizona, in October 2019. He survived the drive-by shooting.
A grand jury indicted Lori on the conspiracy charges for Charles’ death in 2021. However, she had to face charges in the deaths of her kids and Tammy Daybell in Idaho before she could face a judge in Arizona.
Lori is not able to bond out of jail because she is in Arizona on extradition warrants. After both cases are done in Maricopa County, she’ll have to go back to Idaho to continue serving those life sentences.
At Lori’s arraignment, the judge entered not-guilty pleas on both charges on her behalf. The case was originally slated to go to trial in April 2024 but was pushed back after being labeled “complex”.
Charles Vallow: Lori’s fourth husband killed two months before children vanished
Lori, now 51, was once a beautician by trade, a mother of three, and a wife — five times over. Two of them are dead and her current husband, Chad Daybell, is on death row in Idaho after being handed the death penalty when he was convicted of the murders last year.
Her first marriage, to a high school sweetheart when she was just 19, ended quickly. She married again in her early 20s, and had a son named Colby before divorcing.
In 2001, Lori married again, this time to a man named Joseph Ryan. The couple had a baby girl named Tylee in 2002 but divorced just a few years later. Ryan later died in his home of a suspected heart attack.
Charles, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, entered the picture several months later. Lori joined the LDS church and the pair married in 2006. They later adopted Joshua Jaxon “JJ” Vallow.
But by 2019, that marriage had also soured. Charles filed for divorce, contending in court papers that Lori also believed herself to be a deity tasked with helping to usher in the Biblical apocalypse.
That year was the last time Lori was in Arizona – until November when she was extradited there to face charges in Charles’ murder.
In 2019, Lori lived in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler with her children Tylee and JJ.
She was married to her fourth husband Charles, but he had filed for a divorce in February of that year based on claims that her religious beliefs were devolving into something far more sinister.
In one filing, he wrote that Lori had claimed to be a goddess sent to usher in the Biblical apocalypse. He had also allegedly expressed concerns that Lori was cheating on him with Chad, who shared her extreme beliefs.
Prior to Lori’s trial, police had released body-camera footage showing a concerned Charles reporting to detectives that his wife’s fanatical religious views had escalated, that she had become “unhinged” and was worried she might try to hurt him or the children.
He had called Gilbert Police in January 2019 after he was unable to speak to his two kids for a few days. He told the responding officer about the alarming beliefs his wife was sharing.
“She’s not here,” Charles said in the video. “She lost her reality.”
Charles then explained to the officers that Lori considered herself a “translated being” and a God who spoke with an ancient prophet and Jesus Christ daily. The religious views had been growing over the years, but had become more extreme and dangerous, he said.
He said Lori told him a man named Nick Schneider had taken over his body and she would have to kill him.
“I can murder you now with my powers,” she had told him, according to Charles, which prompted him to call the police for fear of his own safety and the safety of Tylee and JJ.
“I love her to death. This is killing me, officer,” Charles said.
Despite the imminent end to their marriage, Charles and Lori were tied together by their adoptive son, JJ.
Months before Charles was killed, Lori had called him and told him to take the kids. He was on a business trip in Houston at the time. When he returned, his truck was not at the airport and Lori had thrown out all of his clothes and drained their bank account.
More bodycam footage shows officers with him at the house, kicking in the door. They had an order to pick Lori up for a mental health exam and to check on the children.
“The only reason why we’re here is some of the statements that you made towards our dispatcher – that you provided to them … he (an officer) made the discussion to conduct the welfare check to make sure your children are safe,” an officer said.
No crime had not been committed, so the police left.
On July 11, Charles went to Lori’s home for a custody exchange that turned deadly when he was shot by her brother, Alex Cox, at a home in Chandler, Arizona.
Cox told police he acted in self-defense, and he was never charged. He died suddenly aged 51 on December 11, 2019 – hours after Tammy’s body was exhumed.
His death was also ruled natural causes, with indications of a blood clot wedged in the arteries of his lungs. However, the overdose drug Narcan was also found in his system.
Meanwhile, Lori and her kids had moved to Idaho shortly after Charles died. At her murder trial, prosecutors said she made the move to be closer to her then-boyfriend Daybell so they could continue their plot to remove any obstacle to their happiness.
Weeks after JJ and Tylee vanished without being reported missing by their mother, another member of the family faced an attack back in Arizona.
Brandon Boudreaux: Ex-husband of Lori’s niece was targeted in drive-by shooting
On October 2, 2019, Brandon Boudreaux, the ex-husband of Lori’s niece, Melani Pawlowski, was targeted in a drive-by shooting outside his home in Gilbert.
The bullet missed his head by mere inches.
Melani Pawlowski (she remarried in November 2019 to Ian Pawlowski, who testified at Lori’s trial), was very close to Lori and believed in many of the same bizarre doomsday prophecies espoused by her and Daybell.
This ultimately ended her marriage to Boudreaux with whom she shared custody of their five children. From evidence heard at Lori’s trial, it is apparent that he too was considered an “obstacle” and — in their beliefs — a “dark” spirit had possessed him.
Google location data showed Alex Cox traveling to and from Gilbert, Arizona, from Idaho in early October 2019.
On October 2, an attempt was made on the life of Boudreaux when he was shot at after returning home from the gym. He had earlier taken his older children to school and dropped the youngest off at Pawlowski’s home.
The shots were fired from the back window of a grey Jeep Wrangler that had had its back spare tyre removed.
Video footage from a storage facility in Idaho showed Cox and Vallow placing the spare tyre in a storage facility the day before he drove south to Maricopa County and then taking it back out a few days later.
When police were finally made aware of JJ and Tylee’s disappearance in November 2019 – weeks after the death of Chad’s first wife and his new marriage to Lori – Charles’ death and the alleged attempt on Boudreaux’s life became key points in the investigation.
But it wasn’t until June 2020 – shortly after the children’s bodies were found on Daybell’s Idaho property – that Lori was charged with conspiring to kill Charles. Her indictment for conspiring to kill Boudreaux came days after her murder conviction in May 2023.
Boudreaux gave heartbreaking testimony at Lori’s trial about the end of his marriage to Pawlowski and broke down as he recalled having to be the person who identified JJ Vallow’s remains.
Questions linger over Pawlowski’s involvement in the attempt on her former husband’s life. She was present in court in Boise for Lori’s trial as her husband testified, but did not take the stand herself much to the surprise of those closely watching the case.
Two women — Zulena Pastenes and Melanie Gibb — who were close to Lori and were involved in the strange rituals she conducted as part of their shared beliefs about the second coming did testify at her trial.
Lori’s new husband gets the death penalty
After a seven-week trial, Daybell is found guilty of murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the deaths of Tylee Ryan, JJ Vallow and his former wife Tammy Daybell.
Two weeks after Tammy’s death, Daybell and Vallow married on a beach in Hawaii.
It was only after the children were reported missing – and authorities began delving into the couple’s bizarre cult beliefs – that questions were asked about Tammy’s death and her body was exhumed for an autopsy. It was determined she had died of asphyxia and Daybell was charged with her murder, as well as the murders of Vallow’s children, who were found buried in Daybell’s Idaho backyard nine months after they went missing.
Prosecutors say Daybell and Vallow justified the three killings by creating an apocalyptic belief system, which was part of an elaborate scheme to eliminate any obstacles from their life.
But Daybell’s attorney claims he was manipulated by Vallow, who was convicted of the murders last year and received three life sentences. Like Vallow, Daybell did not testify in his defense.
On June 1, 2024, he was handed the death sentence. He was then moved to an Idaho Department of Correction maximum security facility to await his execution.
What’s next for the ‘Doomsday Mom’?
Jurors in Ada County Court in Boise, Idaho, took almost seven hours to find Lori guilty after hearing harrowing details about the doomsday mom’s path of deadly destruction and were shown graphic images of the murdered children’s remains.
JJ, who had autism, had been smothered with a plastic bag taped over his face, his little body still dressed in a pair of red pajamas. Tylee’s cause of death has been impossible to establish as the teenager’s dismembered, charred bones and body parts were found scattered in the ground on Daybell’s pet cemetery.
The state called over 60 witnesses to lay out its case that Lori was motivated by both her doomsday cult beliefs but also lust for Daybell and financial greed when she conspired with him and her brother Cox to kill the three victims. During closing arguments, prosecutors argued that Lori had been driven by “money, power and sex” to kill the three victims.
Lori continues to maintain her innocence nearly two years later and in her first interview from prison, she told Dateline correspondent Keith Morrison that she believes she will be set free.
“I will be exonerated. We will both be exonerated in the future,” she says in the episode, referring to her husband Chad Daybell.
“I have seen things in the future that Jesus showed me when I was in heaven,” she adds when pressed by Morrison. “And we were not in jail and we were not in prison.”
Lori is representing herself in the Charles Vallow trial, which is expected to last until May 9. No trial date has been set for the Brandon Boudreaux trial.
