The Doomsday Mom

This transcript is the episode script as written and fact-checked, timed to the recording. Timestamps are approximate within a sentence.

0:05 What's up guys, welcome back to CrimeTimeSnacks. Lori Vallow Daybell became convinced she was a deity destined to play a role in the apocalypse, and that her family was obstructing her mission. You have probably heard the headline version of the doomsday mom case. Let's unpack what the evidence actually shows. Lori and Chad Daybell led a small apocalyptic religious group. They met in October 2018 at a religious conference. Lori had actually been reading Chad's self-published books since around 2015.

0:30 Friends who attended that October conference said Lori was extremely flirtatious with Chad. Chad told Lori they had been married in multiple previous lifetimes. Soon after, Lori's husband Charles went on a business trip. Lori used the time to host an overnight gathering at her house. Chad was there, and the two quickly became lovers. They eventually formed a tight circle of followers, calling themselves the Church of the Firstborn. At the time, Chad and Lori were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

0:58 But the case file shows their beliefs deviated significantly from mainstream Mormonism. Reincarnation played a massive role in their theology. Chad claimed he had lived thirty-one previous lives on different planets, and that Lori had lived twenty-one. He gave them specific identities. Chad claimed he was the reincarnation of the biblical figure James the Less. He told Lori she had been his wife, Elena, in that life. He also told her she had been married to the prophet Moroni.

1:22 Chad called these past lives multiple probations. They also used a unique scoring system to rate people as light or dark. Chad taught that dark people were possessed by evil spirits. The group held casting ceremonies to try and banish these spirits. Chad claimed he could create supernatural portals to interact spiritually with Lori and travel to other realms. The teachings got even darker. They claimed that some possessed people could become zombies. According to the group's theology, a person's soul was replaced by a dark spirit.

1:50 The only way to banish a zombie was to kill the physical body. A group of seven women, including Lori, called themselves the seven gatherers. They would actually hold these casting ceremonies over Zoom. Chad was a self-published author who claimed to have visions of the future. He prophesied that the world would end on July 22, 2020. He told his followers he was guided by angels and could see hidden truths. Lori claimed she had direct communications with God and Jesus. By December 2018, they were broadcasting these ideas.

2:17 They appeared together on a podcast called Time to Warrior Up. Lori even co-hosted her own podcast called Feel the Fire. Lori adopted these fringe beliefs completely. She told people she was an exalted goddess with visionary powers. She believed she and Chad were destined to lead the survivors of the apocalypse. Because she viewed herself as an exalted being, she believed she could not be held responsible for her actions on Earth. Before all of this, friends said Lori had a happy marriage with her husband, Charles Vallow.

2:45 They were raising Lori's teenage daughter, Tylee, and their adopted seven-year-old son, JJ, who had autism. But by 2019, Charles was terrified. He went to the police. He told them Lori believed she was a god preparing for the end of days, and that she had threatened to murder him. Charles filed for divorce. He explicitly stated in court documents that he feared for his life and the safety of the children. Chad Daybell was born on August 11, 1968, in Provo, Utah, to a Mormon family.

3:10 He grew up in the neighboring city of Springville and eventually received a journalism degree from Brigham Young University. Before he was a self-published author with a devoted following, his life looked fairly ordinary. He worked for a time as a copy editor for the Ogden Standard-Examiner. But he also took on jobs that stand out when you look back at his life. During and after his studies, he supported himself by working as a gravedigger. Eventually, he became the cemetery sexton for the city of Springville.

3:36 In 1990, he married Tamara Douglas, who went by Tammy, and they had five children. After making a deal with a religious press, Chad started writing full time. In 2004, he and Tammy founded their own printing press. Chad used it to disseminate his beliefs regarding the end times, publishing his own apocalyptic and dystopian novels. The press was not initially successful. Eventually, it found an audience among preppers who believed the second coming was imminent. In addition to his own work, Chad published similarly themed books by other authors.

4:07 He became a popular author and speaker in some radical circles. But Chad insisted his books were not fiction. He asserted that his writing actually depicted coming events. In a memoir called Living on the Edge of Heaven, Chad wrote that he had two near-death experiences. He claimed these experiences allowed him to receive supernatural visions from beyond the veil. He also became a regular contributor to a forum called Another Voice of Warning. There, he would discuss his near-death experiences and his thoughts on the future.

4:34 Over time, what the case file actually shows is that Chad's religious beliefs became increasingly extreme. In 2013, he began prophesying there would be earthquakes, war, and destruction in the Americas. Then, in 2015, Chad claimed he heard a voice giving him an instruction. The voice told him to relocate his family to Rexburg, Idaho. He gave a very specific reason for the move. Chad said he had a vision that Utah would be devastated by an earthquake in 2015. That June, he and Tammy moved from Springville to Rexburg.

5:03 If you look at Lori Vallow's early life, you see a pattern of chaotic relationships long before she adopted any extreme religious beliefs. She was born Lori Cox in California and grew up in a large Mormon family. But the case file shows her childhood had some unconventional elements. Her parents were tax protesters who adhered to sovereign citizen ideology. They actually spent about two decades in a bitter conflict with the IRS. Lori went through multiple early marriages. She married her high school boyfriend at nineteen, which ended in divorce shortly after.

5:33 A second marriage in 1995 produced her oldest son, Colby. That ended in 1998. During these years, she worked as a hairdresser. She even competed in the Mrs. Texas beauty pageant and appeared as a contestant on Wheel of Fortune in 2004. In 2001, she married Joseph Ryan. They had a daughter named Tylee the following year. That marriage ended in 2005, and what followed was a vicious custody battle. Lori accused Joseph of sexually assaulting the children. The conflict escalated to the point where Lori's brother, Alex Cox, attacked Joseph in 2007.

6:02 Alex claimed Joseph had been abusive, and he served ninety days in jail for the assault. Joseph eventually lost equal custody of Tylee. In February 2006, Lori married a businessman named Charles Vallow. For a while, things seemed to stabilize. Friends from that time described Lori as a cheerful, devoted mother. Charles had a successful career, and they seemed to be building a normal, happy life together. In 2013, the couple expanded their family. They adopted Charles's grandnephew, J.J.

6:29 His biological parents had struggled with substance abuse, and J.J. was actually born with drugs in his system. He spent time in the neonatal intensive care unit and was cared for by his grandparents, Kay and Larry Woodcock, for nearly a year. Charles and Lori then stepped in to adopt him. J.J. was eventually diagnosed with autism. Friends said Lori was incredibly patient and seemed like the ideal mother for him. Tylee fully embraced her role as a big sister, jokingly calling J.J. her own child.

6:55 In 2014, the family moved to Kauai, Hawaii, where they started a small business. They lived a quiet life there before returning to the mainland and settling in Arizona in 2018. That same year, Joseph Ryan was found dead in his apartment. The medical examiner determined he died from heart disease. There was no suspicion of foul play at the time. But years later, after Lori's arrest, police reviewed his death because a recording surfaced. On that tape, Lori mentioned wanting to kill Joseph.

7:21 Despite the recording, investigators found no evidence to change the official cause of death. The case file shows she was specifically focused on his book series called Standing in Holy Places. But her reading list went well beyond that. Over the next few years, her interest in radical religious ideas deepened. She started reading heavily about near-death experiences. She also spent a lot of time listening to podcasts hosted by excommunicated Mormons. Relatives noted that right around 2017, Lori's relationship with her children actually began to change.

7:51 That brings us back to October 2018. When Lori went to that religious conference to meet Chad, it was a specific event called Preparing a People. She did not go by herself. She attended with Melanie Gibb and Zulema Pastenes, two women she had only recently befriended. They were the ones standing right there when Lori and Chad finally met. They watched the interaction unfold. Both women later noted that Lori behaved in a very flirtatious manner with the author. What the evidence actually shows is that the conference was just the spark.

8:20 Chad and Lori immediately started communicating privately after the event. The connection was obvious to the people around them. By November 4, 2018, Lori was already appearing as a guest on the podcast. A month later, she and Chad recorded their first episode together on that same show. Things were moving incredibly fast. April Raymond told interviewers that Lori started referring to Charles as a demon. Melanie Gibb also recalled hearing Chad and Lori talking privately about their concept of zombies.

8:46 The fringe beliefs were taking over Lori's everyday life. Then came the financial moves. On January 28, 2019, Lori vacated the marital residence. She did not inform Charles she was leaving. But she did not leave empty-handed. Financial records show a very specific transaction that day. Lori transferred ten thousand dollars from a joint business account into a joint personal account. The spiritual claims were escalating, but the real-world consequences were already starting to take shape.

9:13 What the case file adds is how Chad actually commanded that room. He captivated the attendees by sharing his unique, Mormon-influenced beliefs. Lori developed a strong attachment to his teachings right then and there. But let's look at who actually joined this inner circle. Chad explicitly positioned himself as the leader of the group. The followers included Lori's niece, Melani Boudreaux, and her friend Melanie Gibb. The circle also pulled in Lori's brother, Alex Cox, and her new friend Zulema Pastenes.

9:40 The dynamics within this small group became incredibly intertwined. Zulema eventually became Alex Cox's girlfriend, and later his wife. They were using media to spread their theology. I noted they recorded an episode of Time to Warrior Up in December 2018. The record shows they were actually featured in several other episodes of that podcast. Lori was not just a guest on these shows. She co-hosted specifically with Melanie Gibb. They were actively broadcasting their apocalyptic worldview to anyone who would listen.

10:09 The timeline of how their relationship progressed in the real world is chilling. Investigators later pulled Lori's internet history. The search records show she ordered a pair of wedding rings in August 2019. That was several months before Chad's wife, Tammy, actually died. The records also show Lori searched for wedding dresses on the exact day of Tammy's burial. Chad did not wait long to integrate Lori into his life. The case file shows he introduced her to his children the very day after Tammy's funeral.

10:36 One week after Tammy's death, Chad told his friends, Todd and Alice Gilbert, that he had already found the woman he was going to marry. Days later, he brought Lori to meet the Gilberts. Alice Gilbert described the meeting as awkward. She noted that Chad and Lori were giggling and laughing. She said Chad was more affectionate with Lori than she had ever seen him be with Tammy. During that visit, Chad told the Gilberts that Lori had recently had a daughter who passed away. Chad also spoke to Tammy's sister, Samantha Gwilliam.

11:03 He claimed Tammy's spirit had appeared to him at the cemetery and told him to move on. He told Samantha that he and Lori bonded over their recently deceased spouses. He said since Lori had no children, they would be empty nesters. Chad and Lori were married in Hawaii on November 5, 2019. That was exactly two weeks after Tammy's death. Aside from his children, Chad did not inform his family about the wedding beforehand. His own mother only found out they were married when she finally met Lori.

11:29 The record shows Chad gave Alex what he called a patriarchal blessing on November 24, 2019. Chad had no standing in the mainstream church to give this blessing. Investigators found the audio recording of it on Lori's iCloud account. In that recording, Chad told Alex he had assisted them in ways that could never be repaid. He called Alex a prophet and a hero. He predicted Alex would be a messenger of the Lord. Less than a month later, on December 12, 2019, Alex Cox died. The official cause of death was attributed to blood clots and high blood pressure.

11:58 But the timing stands out. The day before he died, Lori and Chad informed Alex that authorities were going to exhume Tammy Daybell's body. Zulema Pastenes later testified about her husband's reaction. She said Alex told her he was worried about being Lori and Chad's fall guy. We already know how this ended for Alex Cox in December. But to understand how Lori got to Idaho in the first place, I went back through the timeline to July 11, 2019. That morning, Charles Vallow went to Lori's home in Chandler, Arizona, to pick J.J. up for school.

12:25 Instead, he was shot dead inside the house. When police arrived, Alex claimed that Charles and Lori had gotten into a physical fight. He told investigators he shot his brother-in-law in self-defense. Lori and Tylee were both there, and they backed up his story. Alex was not charged with a crime that day. Zulema Pastenes, a member of Lori's group, later said Cox told her he did not feel bad because he had killed a "zombie." But at the time, the police only had the self-defense claims to go on.

12:52 By the end of August, Lori packed up her children and moved to Rexburg, Idaho. She wanted to be closer to Chad Daybell. Alex Cox moved into the exact same apartment complex. Right before leaving Arizona, Lori actually sold J.J.'s service dog. Once they settled in Rexburg, neighbors noticed J.J. was often left outside without supervision. When asked about him, Lori claimed he was her niece's drug baby. She completely left out his autism diagnosis. Then, the children started vanishing.

13:19 On September 8, 2019, Lori, Alex, J.J., and Tylee took a trip to Yellowstone National Park. Investigators later found a photo from that trip. It is the last known sighting of sixteen-year-old Tylee Ryan. Melanie Gibb later told investigators that Lori had started referring to Tylee as a zombie. Lori also claimed Tylee was attending classes at BYU-Idaho. The school records show she was never actually enrolled. Meanwhile, seven-year-old J.J. was still going to Kennedy Elementary School.

13:46 His last day of class was September 20. Two days later, Melanie Gibb and her boyfriend David Warwick stayed at Lori's house. Around ten thirty that night, Warwick saw Alex carry a sleeping J.J. upstairs. That was the last confirmed sighting of the boy. When Warwick and Gibb woke up the next morning, J.J. was gone. Lori told them he had been misbehaving, so Alex came and picked him up. The next day, J.J. had an unexcused absence at school. By September 24, Lori formally informed the elementary school she was pulling him out to homeschool him.

14:15 In the months that followed, Lori kept collecting the Social Security Survivor benefits both kids received from their deceased fathers. In October, two Venmo payments were sent from Tylee's account to her older half-brother, Colby. When Colby texted to check on her, he received replies saying she was safe but too busy to talk. His phone calls went unanswered, and he became incredibly worried. While Colby was desperately trying to reach his sister in October 2019, the violence around Lori and Chad was escalating.

14:42 The kids were already gone. Now, the adults who stood in the group's way were being targeted. On October 2, a man named Brandon Boudreaux was shot at in the driveway of his home in Gilbert, Arizona. Brandon was the ex-husband of Lori's niece, Melani. He had been a very vocal critic of Lori and Chad's doomsday beliefs. Investigators later linked this attempted murder to Alex. Just one week later, the violence moved to Idaho. On October 9, Chad's wife Tammy called the police. She reported that a masked man had shot at her in her driveway with what she thought was a paintball gun.

15:13 Tammy said the man pulled the trigger several times, but the weapon seemed unloaded. Police initially believed it was a prank. Prosecutors later stated the weapon was likely a real gun that jammed, and they suspected the shooter was Alex Cox. Cell phone data actually showed Alex's phone pinged near the Daybell residence four hours before the incident. There is another chilling detail from that exact night. Zulema Pastenes testified that she was with Lori performing a casting ceremony while Tammy was being attacked.

15:38 Zulema said Lori got off a phone call and became furious. Lori allegedly complained that the idiot on the phone could not do anything by himself. "Ten days after that driveway attack, Tammy Daybell was found dead in her home. Chad claimed she died in her sleep after experiencing a terrible cough and seizures. He refused an autopsy, and the local coroner initially accepted his decision. Alex's phone pinged near the house again that night." But the case file reveals a massive financial motive behind that rapid timeline.

16:05 Chad received life insurance payouts totaling four hundred and thirty thousand dollars after Tammy died. He and Lori used that money to fund their new life in a gated community in Hawaii. While filling out a rental application there, Chad actually wrote that the couple had no children. The missing kids were completely erased from their paperwork. It took over a year for the medical truth about Tammy's death to come out. Her body was eventually exhumed. The autopsy results finally proved what investigators suspected.

16:30 Tammy did not die of natural causes, but had been asphyxiated. The walls finally started closing in on November 26, 2019. J.J.'s grandmother, Kay Woodcock, had grown incredibly worried about the seven-year-old. She called the Rexburg police and requested a welfare check at Lori's townhouse. When a detective showed up, he found Chad Daybell and Alex Cox there instead of Lori. Both men gave bizarre answers to the police. Alex claimed J.J. was actually with Kay, completely unaware that she was the one who called the cops.

17:00 Chad told the detective he was just a friend of Alex's and hardly knew Lori. Investigators eventually got Lori on the phone. She told them J.J. was back in Arizona staying with her friend Melanie Gibb. The police followed up on that claim immediately. They contacted Gibb, who stated J.J. had not been with her for several months. That night, a neighbor watched Lori and Alex packing a truck outside the Rexburg townhouse. When the police and the FBI returned the very next day to search the house, it was completely abandoned.

17:27 Investigators searched Chad's home as well, but the couple was gone. Lori and Chad had abruptly fled Idaho to return to their gated community in Hawaii. While they settled back into island life, the police in Rexburg were desperately trying to piece together the timeline. On December 6, Melanie Gibb contacted the police again. She revealed that both Lori and Chad had called her separately on November 26. She said they explicitly asked her to lie to the police and say J.J. was with her.

17:52 As law enforcement intensified their efforts to locate the seven-year-old, they made another chilling discovery. They realized Tylee was also missing. Authorities quickly connected the missing children in Idaho to the earlier violent events in Arizona. On December 20, the Rexburg Police Department officially announced that J.J. and Tylee were missing and endangered. They stated publicly that the children were not with Chad and Lori. The department noted that Lori had refused to cooperate, opting to leave the state instead.

18:19 The police also announced that the children's disappearance could be linked to Tammy Daybell's suspicious death. By the next day, investigators formally named Lori and Chad as persons of interest. The case quickly gained national media coverage. Family members and friends began describing the couple's radical beliefs in interviews, begging them to bring the children home. By early 2020, investigators were looking at the entire picture. They officially connected the disappearance of J.J. and Tylee to the string of violence we just walked through.

18:46 The deaths of Charles Vallow and Tammy Daybell, along with the attempted murder of Brandon Boudreaux, were no longer viewed as isolated incidents. Law enforcement realized they were dealing with a massive, coordinated conspiracy. Authorities had already served Lori with a court order requiring her to physically produce the children. She completely ignored it. So, on February 20, 2020, police in Hawaii took action. Lori was arrested on charges of desertion and non-support of her dependent children.

19:14 Two weeks later, she was extradited back to Idaho to face a judge. Even while sitting in a jail cell, Lori refused to say where J.J. and Tylee were. But investigators had a crucial piece of digital evidence. They had tracked Alex's cell phone movements from the exact dates the children vanished in September 2019. On June 9, 2020, the FBI and local authorities descended on Chad's land. They started digging in the exact spots where Alex's phone had pinged. What they uncovered is the most devastating part of this case file.

19:42 They found human remains buried in shallow, unmarked graves. J.J. had been buried near a pond, carefully concealed under rocks and wooden planks. His body was wrapped in plastic, with duct tape over his mouth. Investigators found Tylee's remains about fifty yards away in an area the Daybells used as a pet cemetery. Remember that text Chad sent to Tammy about shooting and burying a raccoon? Prosecutors believe that was the exact spot where Tylee was buried. The condition of her remains was absolutely horrific.

20:09 Her body had been burned, her hands were cut off, and her bones were fractured in several places. Forensic examiners deduced that someone had attempted to dismember her. As the property was being searched, Chad actually called Lori in jail to warn her about the situation. After police found and began to unearth the bodies, he tried to drive away from the scene. Police chased him down and apprehended him right there. Chad was immediately arrested for obstruction and concealment of evidence.

20:36 The next day, his bail was set at one million dollars. On June 10, the families confirmed that the remains were indeed J.J. and Tylee. Police had Chad and Lori in custody by the summer of 2020. But there was a third person they suspected of carrying out the physical violence. Authorities believe Alex participated in all of the crimes. Because he died in December 2019, he passed away before authorities could ever arrest him for his suspected role. For months, Lori sat in jail on lesser charges.

21:01 In July 2020, prosecutors actually dropped her initial desertion charges. They replaced them with charges for obstruction and concealment of evidence regarding her children's remains. A judge then lowered her bond to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, while Chad remained held on a one million dollar bond. Those concealment charges were just a placeholder while the state built its full case. The investigation took nearly another year of compiling evidence and witness testimony.

21:26 On May 25, 2021, the grand jury finally handed down the indictments. Chad and Lori were formally charged with the first-degree murders of Tylee, J.J., and Tammy. The indictments also included charges of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. The case file shows exactly how the state planned to explain these horrific acts. Prosecutors pointed directly to the couple's fringe theology. They cited Chad and Lori's apocalyptic beliefs as a primary motive for the killings. The state argued the couple used their religious teachings as a weapon.

21:55 They claimed Chad and Lori labeled their family members as dark spirits to justify the murders. According to prosecutors, they conspired with Alex Cox to remove every human obstacle to their affair. But the evidence showed it was not just about the end of the world. Prosecutors revealed severe financial motives behind the conspiracy. They stated the couple planned the murders to collect specific payouts. Lori was charged with grand theft for those benefits. Chad faced an insurance fraud charge related to Tammy's life insurance policy.

22:22 They were also both charged with grand theft by deception regarding the children. The charges painted a picture of a massive, coordinated conspiracy. Prosecutors alleged that Chad and Lori worked together with Alex to execute a very specific plan. The religious claims about zombies and dark spirits provided the cover story. The real-world result was a string of dead bodies and a series of cashed checks. The state laid out a clear, calculated timeline of financial gain. The state had its indictments, but getting Chad and Lori in front of a jury took years.

22:50 The case file shows the process was repeatedly delayed. The court had to navigate pandemic-related slowdowns and wait on multiple competency evaluations for Lori. Ultimately, the court decided the couple would not sit at the defense table together. Lori and Chad were tried separately for the murders. Lori went first. Her trial began in Idaho in 2023. Prosecutors brought in investigators, relatives, and former friends to testify. They laid out the digital records showing exactly how Lori and Chad labeled the victims as zombies.

23:18 During the trial, Lori suggested a different version of events. She tried to claim that Tylee was actually responsible for J.J.'s death, and then took her own life afterward. Prosecutors flatly rejected this defense. They pointed to the dismembered and burned condition of Tylee's remains as undeniable proof she was murdered and intentionally concealed. The jury looked at what the evidence actually shows. They found Lori guilty on those charges, along with the related theft charges.

23:42 The judge handed down a massive penalty. Lori received multiple life sentences for her crimes. She was ordered to serve that time in prison without the possibility of parole. Chad Daybell faced his own jury the following year. His trial concluded in May 2024. The prosecution walked a new set of jurors through the exact same conspiracy. They proved how Chad's fringe religious teachings provided the cover for a string of financially motivated killings. Just like Lori, Chad was found guilty of all charges.

24:08 But the court in Chad's case handed down a different penalty. Chad was sentenced to death for his role in the killings. The case file shows that both Chad and Lori have appealed their sentencings. They are currently fighting to overturn their murder convictions from behind bars. But the legal accountability did not end with the Idaho verdicts. The state of Arizona was already waiting in the wings. Once the children were reported missing, and especially after their remains were discovered, the case drew massive public and media attention.

24:36 People were absolutely captivated by the bizarre nature of the crimes. It quickly became one of the most closely watched true crime sagas of the decade. The story presented a shocking blend of family tragedy and extreme religious ideology that the public could not look away from. The media coverage initially focused heavily on the pair's religious beliefs. Headlines everywhere zeroed in on the doomsday cult angle. Reporters and commentators spent hours analyzing the group's theology and the supernatural claims.

25:03 The public was gripped by the idea that a mother could adopt such radical, apocalyptic views. Because of that intense focus, the coverage branded the suspects with specific titles. In later media reports, Lori was widely dubbed the Doomsday Mom. Other outlets simply referred to her as a monster or a cult mom. The public narrative remained tightly focused on the extreme beliefs that the couple used to justify the killings. The case raised serious questions in the media about the dangers of extremist religious ideologies.

25:31 People across the country followed every court update, trying to understand how a seemingly normal family could be destroyed by a doomsday prophecy. But what the media broadcasted did not always capture the full picture of the investigation. While the public debated the cult dynamics, the case file shows investigators were quietly tracking the money. The extreme beliefs were the hook for the news coverage, but the actual evidence showed a very calculated, financially motivated conspiracy.

25:56 That conspiracy stretched across state lines, and the legal system followed it. After Lori was sentenced in Idaho, she was extradited back to Arizona. A grand jury there had already indicted her on June 28, 2021. She faced new charges for conspiring with her brother to murder Charles Vallow. The media cameras followed her to Phoenix when that trial finally began in April 2025. The Arizona proceedings included a surprising legal move. Lori actually chose to represent herself in court.

26:24 She cited the legal research and experience she gained from her prior proceedings. But acting as her own attorney did not change the outcome. The jury looked at the evidence of the conspiracy. She was found guilty again. The court handed her two additional life sentences. The headlines called her a monster, but the court record simply shows a convicted killer who was finally held accountable in two different states. So where does that leave everyone today? Lori is currently serving her consecutive life sentences at the Pocatello Women's Correctional Center.

26:54 Despite the mountain of evidence and her multiple convictions across two states, she refuses to take any responsibility. In March 2025, she actually sat down for a television interview from jail with NBC's Dateline. During that broadcast, she firmly denied all the charges against her. The reporter who conducted the interview noted that Lori came in with her own agenda and wanted to be the aggressor. She continues to claim she is entirely innocent, ignoring the horrific condition of her daughter's remains.

27:21 Chad Daybell is facing a very different reality. While Lori will spend the rest of her natural life behind bars without the possibility of parole, Chad is sitting on death row. He was the one who originally built that fringe theology. Now, he is facing the ultimate penalty for providing the religious justification for those murders. The legal process for both of them is still ongoing. The court records show that both Chad and Lori have formally appealed their respective sentencings.

27:45 Those appeals are currently pending, and the legal maneuvering is expected to stretch well into 2026. But the facts established during those trials remain unchanged. Four innocent people lost their lives because they stood in the way of this couple. Charles Vallow, Tammy Daybell, Tylee, and seven-year-old J.J. were all systematically eliminated. Brandon Boudreaux narrowly survived an assassination attempt that authorities linked to the exact same conspiracy. It is easy to see why the public was captivated by the idea of a doomsday mom.

28:16 But when you look past the sensationalism, the evidence shows a highly calculated, financially motivated series of crimes. They convinced Alex Cox it was his divine duty to pull the trigger, clearing their path and allowing them to collect the insurance payouts and survivor benefits. The legacy of the people they left behind is etched into the public memory. The court records are available for anyone to review. The timelines of the missing children and the cashed checks are fully documented.

28:41 Read the file. Form your own conclusion. That's it for this one. Thanks for hanging out with me. This has been CrimeTimeSnacks, and I'll catch you next time.