US mother bags three life jail terms for killing her two kids in ‘doomsday’ plot

A court in Idaho, United States, has sentenced a 48-year-old woman, Lori Vallow, to three life imprisonment terms after she was found guilty of killing her 16-year-old daughter Tylee Ryan and adopted seven-year-old son Joshua “JJ” Vallow, in a “doomsday plot” to usher in the second coming of Jesus Christ.

According to court documents, Vallow who claimed to be a goddess was tasked with ushering in the second coming of Christ and used her apocalyptic religious beliefs to justify murdering two of her children and conspiring to kill her husband’s ex-wife.

While handing down the life sentence on Monday, Judge Steven W Boyce who handed down three consecutive life sentences without the option for parole, said the sentence was due to the gravity of Vallow’s crimes, describing the murder of a child by a parent as “the most shocking thing really that I can imagine”.

Judge Boyce said Vallow had justified the killings by going down a “bizarre religious rabbit hole” from which she had yet to emerge.

“I don’t think to this day you have any remorse for the effort and heartache you caused,” the judge said.

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Ahead of her sentencing, Vallow told the court that she was regularly visited by the spirits of the three victims and the children’s spirits had told her to “stop worrying” and that she “didn’t do anything wrong”.

Prosecutors told the court that Vallow’s fifth husband, Chad Daybell, the leader of a radical Mormon sect and self-published author of several apocalyptic novels, is awaiting trial over similar charges, including the murder of his first wife.

The case which made Netflix true-crime documentary series “Sins of Our Mother”, first drew widespread attention after the disappearance of Vallow’s children in 2019.

Vallow and Daybell never reported the children missing and their bodies were found in June 2020 on property owned by Daybell in Idaho, with prosecutors alleging that Vallow used religious beliefs to justify the murders.

Vallow’s lawyer, Jim Archibald, argued during the trial that there was no evidence tying Vallow to the killings and that she had been a protective mother whose life took a sharp turn when she met Daybell and fell for his “weird” apocalyptic religious claims, suggesting that Daybell and Vallow’s brother, Alex Cox, were responsible for the deaths.

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