JJ Vallow’s family sends powerful message to doomed ‘cult mom’ Lori

Joshua “JJ” Vallow’s grandparents sent a powerful message to his mother, Lori Vallow, after she was found guilty of all counts in the murders of the seven-year-old boy, his 16-year-old sister Tylee Ryan, and first wife. by Chad Daybell, Tammy.

JJ’s grandparents, Larry and Kay Woodcock, choked with emotion as they spoke to reporters outside the Ada County Courthouse in Boise, Idaho, on Friday after the verdict was read in the trial of the mother of the cult of the end. of the world.

“My last message to Lori,” Mr. Woodcock said, before beginning the song “The party’s over,” a song he and JJ used to sing together.

“Turn off the lights, the party is over. They say all good things must end,” she sang.

He then paused and turned to Vallow, saying, “Lori, it’s over.”

JJ’s uncle Gerry Vallow also chimed in: “They’ve got the bitch.”

Mr Woodcock vowed that the mother-of-three’s sentencing is “not the end of this” as the family would face her again at her sentencing in around 90 days.

They will also continue to fight for justice as Daybell is due to stand trial for the three murders next year and Vallow is also awaiting trial for conspiracy to murder her fourth husband, JJ’s father, Charles Vallow in a separate trial in Arizona. .

“Guys, we have two more trials, two more,” he said.

“The next trial is Chad. I hope to be in this court again.”

The Woodcocks attended every day the trial of the woman now convicted of the murder of her seven-year-old grandson, heard harrowing testimony from the boy’s last hours alive, and viewed graphic photographs of his remains interred on Mr. Daybell’s property. .

It was Larry and Kay who raised the alarm about JJ and Tylee in September 2019 when the mother of three moved them from Arizona to Rexburg, Idaho, and they couldn’t get in touch with her grandson.

Nine months later, in June 2020, the remains of JJ and Tylee were found in shallow graves on Mr. Daybell’s property.

After the trial stalled for nearly three years in court, Vallow was finally rendered accountable on Friday.

The jury took nearly seven hours to find Vallow guilty of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and grand larceny in the death of Tylee and JJ.

She was also found guilty of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in the death of Daybell’s first wife, Tammy, 49.

Dressed in a black suit, her blonde hair loose in waves around her shoulders, Vallow stood between her two lawyers as the verdict was read.

He showed no reaction when he learned that the jury had returned a guilty verdict on all counts.

Speaking outside court, Woodcock moved between grief and relief as he paid tribute to the three victims and questioned how Vallow could have done what he did.

Speaking directly to his murdered grandson, he sobbed, “JJ, I love you. Daddy wishes you were here under other circumstances. Tylee, daddy loves you.

“Tammy, I never met you. Tammy you are part of our lives. I’m sorry for what happened to you, my heart aches for these three. This is what this is all about from the beginning.

“It started with the disappearance of two children. I stood up and said ‘where are the children, where are the children, where are the children? Give us back our children.”

To Vallow, he asked, “Why Lori? Why Lory? Because? For power, sex and greed? So that? So that?”

Woodcock thanked all the jurors, the “meticulous” prosecutors and all the law enforcement officials who worked on the case.

“I want to personally thank and I want to give a personal hug to each one of those jurors,” Mr. Woodcock said.

“What they want through what they saw is amazing. I hope no one has to go through this. I hope no one has to see or hear the details of what happened to JJ, Tylee and Tammy.”

Fighting back tears, she acknowledged that some of the images people have “seen in this case…maybe some people will never stop seeing.”

Ms Woodcock also praised the “incredible law enforcement” in the case and said they now hope they can put JJ and Tylee “to rest” and “do right by them.”

“Love always wins,” he said.

JJ and Tylee disappeared without a trace in September 2019, their mother refusing to reveal their whereabouts to either authorities or the boys’ desperate relatives.

A month later, Tammy, a healthy 49-year-old woman, also died suddenly. Her death was initially ruled natural causes.

This bizarre wave of disappearances and deaths came just months after Vallow’s brother, Alex Cox, fatally shot Vallow’s fourth husband, Charles, in Arizona in July 2019.

With the Vallow children and their two spouses out of the way, she and Mr. Daybell embarked on a new life together: flying to Hawaii to be married in a fairytale beach wedding.

But, as the months passed since the last signs of life from the Vallow children, concerns continued to grow, prompting authorities to exhume Tammy’s body. A subsequent autopsy revealed that she had died of suffocation.

In June 2020, nine months after they were last seen alive, the remains of Tylee and JJ were found buried on the grounds of Mr. Daybell’s property in Rexburg, Idaho.

JJ, who had autism, had been suffocated with a plastic bag taped to his face, his small body still clad in red pajamas. Meanwhile, Tylee’s cause of death has been impossible to establish as the teenager’s dismembered and charred bones and body parts were found scattered on the floor of Mr. Daybell’s pet cemetery.

For six weeks, jurors at Ada County Court heard harrowing details about the doomsday mother’s path of deadly destruction and were shown graphic images of the remains of murdered children.

The state called more than 60 witnesses to make its case that Vallow was motivated as much by her doomsday cult beliefs as by lust for Mr. Daybell and financial greed when she conspired with him and his brother Cox to kill to the three victims.

In an explosive move, which may now have proved fatal, the defense stunned the court on Tuesday when Vallow’s lawyers announced they would not present any defense cases or call any witnesses, paving the way for closing arguments to begin before what was planned.

During closing arguments on Thursday, prosecutors argued that Ms Vallow had been driven by “money, power and sex” to kill the three victims.

Ms. Vallow and Mr. Daybell met at a religious conference in October 2018 when they were both married and began an affair.

As their romance grew, so did their cult beliefs and their conspiracy to kill.

Jurors heard how the doomsday couple believed they were on a religious mission to reunite the 144,000 and that there was a “light and dark sorting system” for the spirits of the people around them.

In the weeks and months before the murders, Ms. Vallow allegedly told her friends that JJ and Tylee had turned into “demons”.

Prosecutors said Ms Vallow used these beliefs to “justify” the murders of her children and her love rival.

The state argued that the killings were “premeditated” and “planned,” pointing to evidence including the stash of disposable phones held by the three alleged accomplices, Cox’s practice at a shooting range before a failed attempt on Tammy’s life and a deliberate plan for Mrs. Vallow to be in Hawaii at the time of Tammy’s murder.

Days before each child was killed, Ms. Vallow allegedly modified her Social Security payments so that the money was paid directly into her account.

Prosecutor Rob Wood told the jury that Ms Vallow was the ringleader of the murder plot and that she “set up” and “rigged” both Mr Daybell and Cox to commit the murders.

Ms Vallow was the “single common thread” running through all the suspects and murders, she said.

Meanwhile, in the closing defense statement, Ms Vallow’s lawyers changed the narrative, arguing that instead of being the leader, Ms Vallow was the “follower” of her new lover, Mr Daybell. .

In what marked the first time Ms Vallow had turned on her lover in the nearly three years leading up to the case, her lawyer Jim Archibald tried to paint her as a hard-working “good mother” whose life suddenly fell apart when she met Mr. Daybell. .

“One year after meeting Chad, four people have died,” Archibald said.

Vallow’s alleged accomplices have yet to face justice for the murders.

Mr. Daybell was due to stand trial with Vallow, but the cases were closed weeks before his day in court.

Now he must be tried in 2024 for the three murders.

Meanwhile, the third person charged by state prosecutors as a co-conspirator in the case will never get his day in court.

On December 11, 2019, hours after Tammy’s body was exhumed, Cox died suddenly at the age of 51. Her death was also ruled natural causes, with indications of a blood clot trapped in the arteries of her lungs. However, the overdose drug Narcan was also found in her system.

Vallow’s legal troubles are also far from over, as he is still facing trial in Arizona on charges of conspiring with Cox to murder Charles Vallow.