PRESTON, Idaho, July 31, 2023 (Gephardt Daily) — Lori Vallow Daybell, convicted of the murders of her children, Joshua Jackson “J.J.” Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 16, and of conspiracy to murder Tammy Daybell, has been sentenced to five consecutive counts of life in prison without possibility of parole.
Judge Steven Boyce also sentenced Daybell to two terms of 14 years in prison, to run consecutively, for grand theft of Social Security benefits meant for Tylee and J.J. He also ordered Daybell to pay $22,545 in restitution to the Treasury Department.
“You have been convicted of and have committed the most serious crimes possible,” Boyce told Daybell during sentencing. …
“The most unimaginable type of murder is to have a mother murdering her own children, and that’s exactly what you did. You’re involved in and guilty of conspiring to murder another group of children’s mother, Tammy Daybell.”
Lori Vallow Daybell married Tammy’s husband, Chad Daybell, two weeks after his first wife’s death, Boyce said, adding Lori had shopped for wedding rings and started making wedding plans before Tammy’s death.
“You removed your children from their home in Arizona, alienated them from friends and family and got rid of J.J.’s service dog,” Boyce said. “You moved to Rexburg, a community where you could find 1,000 random families to take your children, and you brought them here to murder them.
“You had so many other options. You could have gotten divorced. You could have found someone to take care of those kids. But as the state was able to prove a trial, you chose the most evil and destructive path possible. You killed those children, according to the state’s theory, and I believe it to remove them as obstacles and to profit financially” from insurance money and ongoing Social Security payments, Boyce said.
“You’ve justified all of this by going down a bizarre religious rabbit hole, and clearly, you are still down there.”
Prior to Boyce’s sentencing announcement, Daybell had made a statement quoting scriptures and claiming to have talked multiple times to Tylee, J.J. and Tammy, who were in heaven, and who told her she did nothing to hurt them, and they were happy and fulfilled in their afterlives.
Daybell also claimed to have had multiple conversations with Jesus, who also told her she was innocent, she said.
Closing statements from prosecuting attorney Robert Wood described the state in which Tylee and J.J. were found, buried in a pet cemetery area of land owned by Chad Daybell. Tylee was found stabbed, dismembered and burned, with her skull crushed, making identification by dental records difficult, so DNA tests were required. J.J. was bound in duct tape, and died of affixation, Wood said.
“During the trial, when the evidence came out, about how these children were found in the state they were in, you wanted to be excused and not have to watch the evidence,” Boyce said. He added that Daybell was not excused, nor were the 18 jurors and alternates who didn’t have the opportunity to look away.
“I do thank the jurors publicly for the service they rendered. Those jurors, I noted during the trial, were very good at keeping their emotions in check from keeping stone faced as they’re supposed to.”
“The crime scene was a horrific thing to have to review. And there’s images that I will never get out of my mind. And I’m just looking at the pictures law enforcement officers who had to deal with the aftermath of what you did. I’m sure they were traumatized and I know it was traumatic as well for the jurors who had to sit through and see the photographs of these dead and mutilated and buried children.”
“You may not believe, to this day, that you’ve done anything wrong, and you still may think you’re justified by your religious beliefs from what happened here. I’m not here to judge that, but I don’t believe that any god in any religion would want to have this happen.”
Boyce reminded the court that Daybell likely will still face charges in Arizona in the case of former husband Charles Vallow’s shooting death. Boyce also stated that Daybell has the right to appeal her current case to the Idaho Supreme Court.
Chad Daybell faces similar charges to those wife Lori faced. His trial is scheduled for April of next year.
