A killer 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 murder her husband’s ex-wife.
Lori Vallow, 50, had become obsessed with a coming 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.
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The disappearance of two of her children in September 2019 – seven-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow and his big sister Tylee Ryan, 16 – transfixed the nation and sparked a months-long search.
It wasn’t 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.
Vallow appeared at Fremont County Courthouse in St Anthony, Idaho on Monday for sentencing.
Read more:
Did fear of apocalypse drive ‘doomsday mom’ Lori Vallow to murder her children?
Vallow and 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.
