Jury in Lori Vallow’s murder trial has reached a verdict after deliberating whether cult mom killed her two children for nearly seven hours

Lori Vallow is guilty on two counts of first-degree in the murders of Joshua ‘JJ’ Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 16, as well as two counts of conspiracy to commit the murder of her children

Vallow was also found guilty of conspiracy to murder Chad Daybell’s wife Tammy Daybell, 49

Vallow, 49, and her husband Chad Daybell, 54, are accused of murdering her son JJ and daughter Tylee and his wife Tammy in Rexburg, Idaho, September 2019

Two weeks after Tammy’s death in October 2019, Vallow wed Daybell in Hawaii

Her defense put the blame on her husband Chad Daybell

Closing arguments wrapped up Lori Vallow’s weeks-long murder trial Thursday

The prosecution claimed it was Vallow’s own desire for ‘money, power and sex’ that drove the killings

Lori Vallow, who was stoic at her sentencing Friday, faces life in prison after jury find her GUILTY of murdering her two children, 7 and 16, whose charred, dismembered remains were found in her new husband’s property in Rexburg, Idaho, in September 2019

The jury in the case of cult mom Lori Vallow’s triple murder trial at the Ada County Courthouse in Boise, Idaho, reached a verdict after nearly seven hours of deliberation on Friday afternoon.
Lori Vallow Daybell, 49, despite pleading not guilty to killing her kids, faces life in prison on two counts of first-degree murder and three counts of conspiracy in the 2019 deaths of her two children.
The anxiously-awaited verdict read at 12:45pm mountain time, found Vallow guilty on two counts of first-degree in the murders of Joshua ‘JJ’ Vallow and Tylee Ryan, as well as two counts of guilty of conspiracy to commit murder. Judge Steven Boyce said sentencing will likely take place in approximately three months.

Lori Vallow, 49, shown in court [center], in August 2022, was on trial accused of killing her son JJ Vallow, seven, and daughter Tylee Ryan, 16, in Rexburg, Idaho, in September 2019

Vallow, aka ‘cult mom,’ was accused of killing her son JJ, seven, and daughter Tylee, 16, in Rexburg, Idaho, in September 2019.
A month later, she is alleged to have participated in the murder of Tammy Daybell, who at the time was married to her now husband and co-conspirator, Chad Daybell.
49-year-old Tammy was suffocated in her bed. Vallow went on to marry Daybell in Hawaii two weeks later.
Chad Daybell, who is facing similar charges is yet to stand trial. 
Vallow’s trial has consumed Boise for the last five weeks. None of it has been televised and she has not been photographed for months. However, the judge allowed the verdict to be televised today.  

Five time married mother-of-two Lori Vallow is accused of killing seven-year-old Joshua JJ, [left], and 16-year-old daughter Tylee, [right], to pave the way for an unencumbered life with her fifth husband, Chad Daybell, who was also married, so they had to get rid of his wife

The charred and dismembered remains of Vallow’s children were found on the property of her husband Chad Daybell. He is facing a separate trial

‘Four years for this,’ JJ’s grandfather Larry Woodcock said from the courtroom with tears in his eyes. ‘Four years we’ve been waiting.’
The case drew nationwide interest in 2019 after vanishing. 
It took another nine months for their bodies to be discovered in shallow graves in Chad Daybell’s backyard. 
JJ had been suffocated with a plastic bag, while Tylee’s corpse was so badly burned and dismembered that it is still not clear how she was killed.
Vallow faces life in prison after the death penalty was taken off the table earlier this year. 

‘Cult mom’ Lori Vallow and her current husband Chad Daybell are accused of murdering his ex-wife Tammy, 49, seen [right], in photo with Daybell

Larry Woodcock, the grandfather of seven-year-old JJ Vallow, on arrival at court Friday morning, said he was hoping for a ‘just’ and ‘righteous’ verdict today. 
The State claimed Vallow was motivated by ‘money, power and sex’ and that she used all three of those things to achieve her twisted ends.
Jurors heard how they saw her children and Daybell’s wife as ‘obstacles’ to the romantic life they envisioned for themselves in Hawaii. 

Vallow wed Daybell in Hawaii two weeks after the latter’s wife was strangled in her bed. Prosecutors said the pair saw her children and Daybell’s wife as ‘obstacles’ to the romantic life they envisioned for themselves in Hawaii. Lori has had five husbands 

Vallow and Daybell believed, or chose to believe, that those who stood in their way were ‘dark’ possessed individuals who they referred to as ‘zombies,’ prosecutors told the jury.
The cult mom is further charged over the death of her former husband Charles Vallow who was shot dead by her brother Alex Cox in Arizona in July, 2019. She is yet to enter a plea in that case.
Vallow met religious author Daybell at a conference in St George, Utah, in late 2018. She was already familiar with his religious novel in which he espoused ideas that the reckoning day was imminent.
Soon after meeting, the pair – both members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – embarked on an affair.

The last known photograph of Vallow’s children Joshua and Tylee, [left], was taken during a family trip to Yellowstone National Park with their uncle Alex Cox, [right], and her mom Lori

The cult they formed included relatives and friends they met at doomsday conferences.
Daybell acted as the leader and Vallow acted as his trusted lieutenant and conduit through which other members, like her brother Cox, would seek advice.
Cox, who died of natural causes in December, 2019, is accused of participating in the murder of Vallow’s children and his fingerprints were found on tape that was found wrapped around JJ’s corpse.
After allegedly killing the children in September, 2019, Vallow would tell friends and relatives various lies, including that JJ was with his grandparents and Tylee had gone to university.
But in late November, police began investigating after out-of-state relatives reported the children missing.

Police and FBI investigators search the Daybell property. After nine months searching, the children’s remains were discovered in shallow graves in Chad Daybell’s backyard

Days later Tammy Daybell’s death was reclassified as suspicious and her body exhumed. An autopsy – which Daybell had refused the night she died, shows she had died of asphyxiation.
Vallow was eventually arrested in Hawaii in February 2020, but the children would not be found for another four months.
Jurors heard from Prosecutor Lindsey Blake described how charred remains were all that was left of Tylee.
She told jurors: ‘You will hear it explained as a mass of bone and tissue. That’s what was left of this beautiful young woman.’
Tylee’s DNA was later found on a pickax and shovel in a shed on the property. 
JJ’s was suffocated inside a plastic bag. His body was wrapped in trash bags and duct tape that bound his arms in front of him and wrapping around his head.

Lori Vallow [right], is further charged over the death of her former husband Charles Vallow, [left], who was shot dead by her brother Alex Cox in Arizona in July, 2019. She is yet to enter a plea in that case

Lori’s brother Alex Cox [photo], killed her husband Charles Vallow in Arizona in July, 2019. The siblings claimed Alex ‘shot in self-defense’. Accused of participating in the September 2019, murders of his niece and nephew, Cox, died of natural causes in that December

The two children and Daybell’s previous wife Tammy were all killed because they stood in the way of the couple’s relationship, the State said. 
‘Remember, the defendant will remove any obstacle in her way to get what she wants, and she wanted Chad Daybell,’ Blake told jurors.
‘The defendant used money, power and sex to get what she wanted.’
Jurors have heard from friends and relatives of Vallow that she and Daybell believed the children were ‘dark’ and referred to them as ‘zombies’ before they disappeared.
‘The common theme was the body has to be destroyed,’ Blake said. ‘The defendant and Chad used their self-proclaimed religious teachings to justify their actions from affair to murder, to other [people].’
JJ’s body was wrapped in trash bags and duct tape – the tape binding his arms in front of him and wrapping around his head. He had been suffocated inside a plastic bag.
The two children and Daybell’s previous wife Tammy were all killed because they stood in the way of the couple’s relationship, the State said. 
‘Remember, the defendant will remove any obstacle in her way to get what she wants, and she wanted Chad Daybell,’ Blake told jurors.
‘The defendant used money, power and sex to get what she wanted.’
Jurors have heard from friends and relatives of Vallow that she and Daybell believed the children were ‘dark’ and referred to them as ‘zombies’ before they disappeared.
‘The common theme was the body has to be destroyed,’ Blake said. ‘The defendant and Chad used their self-proclaimed religious teachings to justify their actions to others,— their actions from affair to murder.’
Prosecutors say the couple planned to use life insurance money from Tammy’s death, and that Vallow kept collecting and spending the children’s social security and benefits after they died.
However, Vallow’s defense attorney pointed the finger at her husband. He Vallow as a loving mother who was seduced by Daybell, had no idea Daybell and her brother Alex had ‘stuffed her kids’ bodies in Chad’s backyard’.