A woman from Australia who believed in “doomsday” was sentenced on Monday to life in jail without the possibility of parole for killing two of her children and planning to murder her husband’s ex-wife.
In May, Lori Vallow was convicted guilty of the murders of Joshua “JJ” Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 16, who was adopted as children.
Judge Steven W. Boyce said in court in Idaho, a state in the northwest of the US, “You are sentenced to the custody of the State Board of Corrections to serve the maximum allowed sentence… life imprisonment with no possibility of parole.”
When asked whether she could speak with angels, Vallow claimed to be a goddess tasked with preparing the world for the second coming of Jesus.
According to accusations made by the prosecution, she exploited her religious convictions to defend the killings. “Sins of Our Mother,” a true-crime Netflix documentary series, explored this case last year.
They further asserted that the offenses were committed for financial gain.
She is now married to her fifth husband, Chad Daybell, who is facing similar accusations, including the murder of his first wife Tammy. Chad is the self-published author of multiple apocalyptic books. To each charge, he has entered a not guilty plea.
Following the disappearance of Vallow’s children in late 2019, the story initially made national news.
The kids were never reported missing by Vallow and Daybell, and their remains were discovered in June 2020 on Daybell-owned land in Idaho.
It also came to light that a number of persons connected to Vallow and Daybell had passed away recently.
Among them was Daybell’s wife Tammy, who passed away in October 2019 purportedly from natural causes only a few weeks before the pair relocated to Hawaii.
Being raised a Mormon, Vallow’s religious views became more extreme over time.
At a religious gathering in Utah in 2018, she got to know Daybell, the head of an extreme Mormon sect that was getting ready for the end of the world.
Due to the seriousness of Vallow’s acts, Judge Boyce handed three consecutive life sentences on Monday rather than two concurrent ones.
“In Idaho, a life sentence is just that — a life sentence without parole,” he said.
Running the charges simultaneously, however, “would not serve the interests of justice because there are three separate murders with three separate victims that occurred at three separate times,” he added.
“You must answer for each of the three murders on your own,” she said.