Lori Vallow, the so-called “cult mom” who was found guilty last year of murdering her two children, has claimed for the first time that her daughter was to blame for the death of her son — and that the teenager then killed herself as she felt guilty about her little brother’s accidental death.
Vallow, 51, made the bizarre claim — which does not match any of the facts of the murders — in a phone call with her surviving adult son that aired on his podcast on Sunday. The interview is the first time Vallow has been heard from publicly since she was sentenced in 2023 for the 2019 murders of her daughter Tylee Ryan, 16, and her son Joshua “JJ” Vallow, 7.
The children’s remains were found buried in the Rexburg, Idaho backyard of Vallow’s husband, alleged “doomsday” cult leader Chad Daybell in June 2020, nine months after the children went missing.
Vallow was sentenced to life in prison for the murders. In the call to her adult son Colby Ryan, which aired on his podcast, The Scar Wars, Vallow offered up never-before-heard conspiracies with no evidence, suggesting that Tylee was mad about their move to Idaho and accidentally killed JJ in a fit of frustration.
“What if Tylee was holding JJ down and trying to get him not to scream and be loud in an apartment? What if she held him down too long and realized afterward what she had done?” Vallow offered on the call, the first time she’d spoken to Colby in four years.
“When I came in on that scene and they were gone, I thought Tylee did it to get back at me. I thought it was all my fault. I thought she was mad at me, and that’s what happened.”
Colby pressed Vallow to continue her story and the reason for not mentioning it at any time in the past four years.
“I didn’t want anyone to know what Tylee had done to JJ,” she tearfully told Colby on the call, “I wanted to continue to protect Tylee as her mother who has been trying to protect her for her whole life.”
She went on to explain that after she found the dead children, she “ran out,” and someone else did something with their bodies.
“I wasn’t aware what happened to them after I left that scene,” she said. “Their spirits were gone from their bodies. They were already in heaven.”
Vallow’s claims on the podcast do not match up with the details and timeline given at her trial that revealed Tylee died first – on September 9, 2019, two weeks before JJ was killed on September 23.
When their bodies were found in 2020, JJ was found wrapped in plastic and duct tape. He was still wearing the red pajamas he was last seen in. Tylee’s remains had been burned before she was buried in the pet cemetery on Daybell’s property. Parts of her body are still missing.
Colby struggled as he took his mother through the gruesome details of his siblings’ murders.
“She was brutally mistreated after her death,” he said. “It wasn’t even human. It’s the most brutal thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”
Vallow told Colby that when she found her children dead, “there was no bag.”
“When I found my little precious babies, there was no bag. There was no duct tape. There was nothing like that. They were just gone. Anything that was done was after the fact – long after the fact.”
She claimed that the children “visited” her after their deaths and Tylee told her, “I’m sorry, Mom, for being such a brat.”
“The reason Tylee and JJ visited me right after that is to tell me it wasn’t my fault. I was blaming myself 100 per cent,” she said.
Colby told his mom on the call that he does not believe her claims, and she is “beyond deceived.”
She responded that her case has been blown out of proportion and the “media flood” against her is from Lucifer.
Colby explained at the end of the hour-long episode that wanted to rebut Vallow’s statements, but that he would not “because there’s no point.”
“There would have been no conversation, and it would have been chaos,” he said. “She’s so convicted of her truth and her reality. She truly believes what she believes.”
He stated Tylee had nothing to do with the deaths as he broke down in tears.
“My sister did not kill my brother. She didn’t and to put it on her is so unfair. It’s so unfair to Tylee. She would never do that,” he said.
Vallow’s call from prison comes as she waits to stand trial in another trial, this time in Arizona, which is slated for February 2025 after multiple delays. She is accused of conspiring to murder her fourth husband Charles Vallow in 2019 and conspiring in the attempted murder of her niece’s ex-husband Brandon Boudreaux.
While Vallow’s story on Sunday differed from the wild claims she made at her sentencing in July 2023, she stood by her statement that “no one was murdered” but rather accidents, suicides and “fatal side effects of medications happened.”
Vallow maintained that she is on a mission from Jesus, that she is “doing her job,” and that her case has been blown “way out of proportion.”
“There is higher knowledge for people who need to know it,” she told Colby on the call. “People who don’t need to know it, don’t need to know it. It comes directly from Jesus to me. It doesn’t come from any other source. It comes from Jesus Christ directly to me.”
Since Vallow married allegedly cult leader Chad Daybell in 2019, a deeply disturbing tale of suspected murders, unexplained deaths and apocalyptic cult beliefs about killing zombies has come to light, with many of the details laid out at her trial in Ada County. A year later, Daybell was also found guilty of murdering Vallow’s children, along with the murder of his wife, Tammy Daybell.
At the end of the call, Vallow told her son she loved him and asks to be part of his life, which he denies.
“I have no malice toward you. I do 100 per cent forgive you,” he said. “I forgive you. I’m not going to hold you in a jail cell in my heart, but you can not be a part of my children’s lives. You and I can’t even be a part of each other’s lives. I don’t feel like I know you anymore.”
Vallow began to cry as she tells him that nothing could have been done differently and that her mission will eventually be revealed.
“When we get to heaven, we’ll know,” she said.
“I can’t tell you anything different, and I don’t care what anybody thinks. They weren’t there. They don’t know.”
