Lori Vallow Daybell is seen in an April 2022 mugshot.
Attorneys for Lori Vallow, the high-profile Idaho murder defendant accused of killing two of her children, issued a not guilty plea on their client’s behalf on Tuesday. The entering of the plea comes days after a judge restored Vallow to competency to face charges.
Vallow, 48, faces charges of murder and conspiracy after her son Joshua “JJ” Vallow, 7, and daughter Tylee Ryan, 16, disappeared from Rexburg, Idaho, on different dates in September 2019. The children turned up dead in June 2020 on property belonging to Vallow’s new husband, co-defendant Chad Daybell, 52.
The case caught national attention in part because of a series of grim events surrounding the tragic deaths. Vallow and Daybell have also been dubbed the “Doomsday Cult” couple due to their apparent apocalyptic beliefs.
Vallow’s brother Alex Cox shot and killed her previous husband Charles Vallow in July 2019 when the family lived in Arizona. Vallow is now charged with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in that case. Her brother died in December 2019 of what authorities called a blood clot.
Chad’s previous wife Tammy Daybell, 49, died in October 2019. Authorities say Cox tried to shoot Tammy mere days before her death. Chad Daybell is charged as the person who actually murdered her.
Vallow and her new husband married in Hawaii in early November 2019 amid her children’s disappearance. Police say they only learned about Joshua and Tylee being missing after Joshua’s paternal grandmother, who lived in another state, requested a welfare check. Before the murder case, Vallow was charged with snubbing police as they tried to find the kids, and with trying to get a friend of hers to lie to investigators.
[Booking photo via Madison County Sheriff’s Office]