Child murderer Vallow plays ‘perfect mom’ in never-before-seen Disney pic with son & former husband before killing spree
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CALLOUS and remorseless child murderer Lori Vallow is seen playing the role of the perfect mom in an unseen family vacation photo months before her Doomsday killing spree began.
The image – exclusively obtained by The U.S. Sun – shows a smiling, sunglasses-clad Lori with her arms wrapped around her son JJ‘s waist as they plunge down a drop on the now-defunct log flume, Splash Mountain, during a family visit to Disneyland.
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Among those seated on the ride with JJ and Lori are JJ’s grandma, Kay Woodcock, and his adoptive father – and Lori’s then-husband – Charles Vallow.
While the exact date the photo was taken remains unclear, within months of the joyous snapshot being captured, both Charles and JJ would be dead.
And Lori – the woman seen in the image wrapping her arms protectively around JJ – would be accused of co-masterminding a depraved Doomsday plot with her fifth husband, Chad Daybell, that saw Charles, JJ, and others killed or attacked over a period of several months.
Last week, Lori was found guilty of murdering JJ, 7, and her daughter Tylee Ryan, 16, who both vanished in Sept. 2019 and were later found buried in the backyard of Daybell’s Rexburg, Idaho, home in June 2020.
She was also found guilty of conspiring to murder Daybell’s wife of 30 years, Tammy Daybell, who was strangled to death in bed the month after JJ and Tylee were last seen.
While family members of JJ and Charles voiced relief at the verdict after almost three years of waiting, they recognized a long road still lies ahead in their quest for justice.
Chad Daybell, who is facing the same charges as Lori, is still due to go on trial but a date has not yet been set by the judge.
And Lori is facing additional conspiracy charges in Arizona: one charge related to the July 2019 shooting death of Charles Vallow and one count for the attempted murder of her niece’s ex-husband, Brandon Boudreaux, who survived an attempted drive-by shooting in Oct. 2019.
While savoring the small victory of Lori’s incarceration, Kresha Easton – JJ’s aunt and Charles’ niece – told The U.S. Sun she’s trying to remember how her uncle and nephew lived, rather than the cruel circumstances in which their lives were claimed.
“[JJ] was a ball of energy,” said Kresha. “He was a happy kid and very inventive.
“And he just loved Lori. He loved his mom, he loved his dad, and he loved his grandparents.
“Both JJ and Tylee had so much to give, they were both such bright lights in this world.
“And that is something that Lori, Chad, or anyone else on this planet can’t ever wipe away; this light of these two children.”
Speaking about her Uncle Charles, Kresha added: “My Uncle Charles was such a good man and an amazing dad to JJ, Tylee, and his other kids.
“And he loved Lori,” she added. “He was besotted. He loved her and it killed him.”
MISSED OPPORTUNITY
Charles Vallow had been among the first people to sound the alarm to the police about Lori, warning them in January 2019 that he thought something terrible was about to happen.
In bodycam footage and 911 calls made to the Gilbert Police Department, Charles was heard telling officers he wants his wife “to get help.”
“I want her to get help. She’s my wife. I love her to death. Something’s gone wrong,” Charles told police in one clip.
“And if she wants me gone, fine, I can do all that stuff. I just don’t want her to hurt [JJ]. I just don’t want her to hurt anybody else.”
He added to another officer: “I’ve got a six-year-old with special needs.”
In another interaction with police, he stressed his concerns for Lori’s ailing mental health, telling a dispatcher she’s “lost her marbles.”
The following month, Charles met with his sister, Kay Woodcock, and told her he wanted her to be the sole recipient of the sum in the event anything should happen to him.
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Kay previously revealed to The U.S. Sun that Charles was concerned by Lori’s increasingly strange behavior of late, which included transferring $35,000 from his business account into her own and referring to him as “Nick Schneider” – the name of an evil spirit she believed had possessed him.
“Lori doesn’t want me anymore,” Kay recalled Charles saying. “She doesn’t want JJ and you’ll end up raising JJ so I want you to have the money.”
Kay accepted her brother’s proposal, though insisted she would give the money to Charles’ two sons from a previous marriage and JJ.
At the time of the siblings’ tet-a-tet, Lori had completely vanished without a word of where she was going and didn’t return home for 58 days.
While she was AWOL, Charles filed for divorce, seeking sole custody of JJ and making a series of disturbing allegations about Lori’s mental stability.
Charles said during a phone call in late January that Lori told him she is a “translated being who cannot taste death sent by god to lead the 144,000 into the Millennium”, court documents show.
“[Lori] believes that she is receiving spiritual revelations and visions to help her gather and prepare those chosen to live in the New Jerusalem after the Great War as prophesied in the Book of Revelations,” an excerpt from the document reads.
Charles further claimed that Lori threatened his life, telling him she was a God preparing for Christ’s second coming in July 2020 and warned that if he got in her way, she would murder him.
‘HIS LOVE KILLED HIM’
Charles later withdrew the divorce petition, apparently determined to make their marriage work, but texts shared during Lori’s trial last month suggest he was aware of her affair with Chad and remained in fear for his life.
In a message to his wife on June 30, 2019, two weeks before his death, Charles wrote: “You accuse me of Infidelity [sic] but it’s you who has been having an affair. It just keeps killing me. Maybe that’s your goal.”
In other messages, he threatened to tell Tammy Daybell about her and Chad’s affair, warning her he had “definitive proof” of their adulterous tryst.
Then, on the morning of his death, Charles received a message from Adam Cox – another of Vallow’s siblings, who is not involved in the case – warning him that Vallow and Daybell are “planning something.”
Charles responded “Absolutely” and within minutes was shot dead.
Kresha says she wishes her Uncle Charles’ various warnings had been better heeded by law enforcement.
Had they been, she believes that he, JJ, Tylee, and Tammy would all still be alive today.
“We wouldn’t be sat here having this conversation – I’m angry,” she said.
“Just as angry as I am with the Chandler Police Department, I feel so bad for my uncle, because he was just dismissed time and time and time again.”
PRECIOUS MEMORIES
Lori has not yet entered a plea in her outstanding cases concerning the death of Charles Vallow and the attempted murder of Boudreaux.
Her tumultuous six-week trial for the murders of JJ and Tylee saw jurors and family members tasked with enduring an abundance of harrowing and graphic testimony, which included images of the children’s remains.
JJ’s grandmother, Kay Woodcock, left court on the day the images were shown. However, his grandpa, Larry, and his aunt, Kresha, reluctantly stayed in the gallery.
Larry was heard loudly sobbing from his chair when the young boy’s lifeless face was projected on a screen; Kresha, meanwhile, caught only a glimpse, unable to bear looking up for more than a fraction of a second.
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In an interview last year, Kay reflected on her memories of JJ – who had autism – remembering him simply as “joy.”
“When I think of JJ, I think of Joy,” she said. “He just was and he had such a big heart.
“He was kind-hearted and he would always share.
“He loved to swim, he loved to ride his little cart […] he was starting to develop his own little sense of humor and he would kind of joke with you. He was very smart.
“And he was just really coming into his own when Charles got killed.
“I savored every minute I spent with him.”
HARROWING TRIAL
After JJ’s disappearance on September 23, 2019, Lori Vallow maintained for months that her children were safe and living with family members in Arizona, even as she married for a fifth time to Doomsday author Chad Daybell and relocated to Hawaii amid a police investigation.
Kay also desperately pleaded with Lori via text and email for information about JJ’s whereabouts but her persistent inquiries went unanswered.
“It was like being in the pits of hell and you couldn’t escape,” Kay said of her agony in the weeks and months after JJ’s disappearance.
“Because I woke up thinking about him, I went to sleep thinking about him, I thought about him all day long and I could hardly focus on anything else.
“It was just nine months of pure hell, of not knowing, of just that pit in your stomach that just would never go away.”
Nine excruciating months would pass before Kay, Kresha and the rest of their family’s worst fears would be realized.
JJ and Tylee’s remains were found buried in the backyard of Chad Daybell’s Rexburg, Idaho, home on June 9, 2020.
During Lori’s trial last month, jurors were told in graphic detail how JJ’s body was found bound in duct tape and plastic bags near a tree on the property.
Tylee’s body, meanwhile, had been dismembered – likely with a pickaxe – and burned. Her remains were found scattered at various different places throughout the yard.
Due to the condition of her remains, a specific cause of death beyond homicide could not be determined for Tylee, however, prosecutors revealed that JJ had been asphyxiated with a plastic bag.
LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL
Lori is due to be sentenced within the next three months. She faces a maximum term of life in prison.
Speaking outside the courtroom after her guilty verdict was read, Kay said: “Our JJ, now, maybe we can get him and put him to rest, as well as Tylee, and do right by them.”
JJ’s relatives are now turning their attention toward the trial of Chad, which is due to take place in the coming months.
With one trial down, Kresha said a long road still remains ahead.
However, she says she’s looking forward to the day she can finally find some form of closure.
“When this is done, I’m not letting Lori and Chad steal any more from my life,” she said.
“I don’t have any control over how Lori feels or whether she will come to terms with what she’s done, and if she regrets it.
“And [even with a guilty verdict] there are no winners in this. It doesn’t breathe life back into the victims. I wish it did but you can’t go back.
“They have stolen enough and time continues to be a thief. It continues to take and take.
“I can’t wait to close – even if there is such a thing – this chapter.
“But I’m so proud of how my family is handling it all.”
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