Lori Vallow ramps up bid to prove she was not mentally competent to stand trial
The ‘cult mom’ was sentenced to life in prison for the murders of her children
Lori Vallow’s new public defender has filed an amended notice of appeal that seeks transcripts questioning her mental competency to stand trial earlier this year in the murders of her two children and her husband’s former wife.
An initial appeal was filed on 6 September just a month after the so-called “Doomsday mom” was sentenced to life in prison for the heinous killings. But that notice was suspended when the case was reassigned by the Office of the State Appellate Public Defender.
Vallow’s new public defender Craig Durham listed 16 identical questions that he wants answered – the first asking if Vallow, “after spending 10 months in a mental hospital, was competent to stand trial?”
After a grueling weeks-long trial, Vallow was found guilty in May of killing her two children, seven-year-old Joshua "JJ" Vallow and 16-year-old Tylee Ryan. Their bodies were found buried in the backyard of her husband Chad Daybell in Rexburg, Idaho.
She was also found guilty of conspiring to kill her husband’s former wife Tammy Daybell.
Vallow married Daybell in November 2019 less than two weeks after his wife Tammy died of what was initially labeled as natural causes. Her body was later exhumed and it was determined she died of asphyxiation.
The questions and issues raised in the new appeal are identical to the ones listed by Vallow’s former attorney Jim Archibald in the first appeal, but Mr Durham is more specific about requests for court transcripts.
The attorneys claimed there were a number of issues during Vallow’s trial, many revolving around mental competency. They also questioned whether her right to a speedy trial was violated, and why the court denied the defense’s request in November 2022 to send her back to a mental hospital.
In the new appeal, Mr Durham asked for sealed mental health reports to be confidentially included in the clerk’s record.
There are also several questions regarding the technical details of the conspiracy charges and alleged conspirators, and whether the sentencing court properly reviewed evidence and if it abused its discretion in handing down the three life sentences without parole.
The case drew nationwide attention when Vallow’s children went missing in September 2019.
While they were still unaccounted for, Vallow was on a beach in Hawaii marrying self-proclaimed religious leader Chad Daybell.
Nine months later, the children’s bodies were found buried in Daybell’s backyard in June 2020.
JJ, who had autism, had been smothered with a plastic bag taped over his face, his little body still dressed in a pair of red pyjamas.
Tylee’s cause of death was impossible to establish as the teenager’s dismembered, charred bones and body parts were found scattered in the ground on Daybell’s pet cemetery.
Prosecutors in Idaho accused Vallow, Daybell and her brother Alex Cox of conspiring to kill people who were “obstacles” to Daybell and Vallow’s relationship.
Both Vallow and Daybell were both charged with murder and conspiracy in the death of her children and conspiracy to kill Tammy, and after three years of delays and weeks of harrowing testimony, Vallow stood trial in April and May of 2023.
Vallow was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole. Daybell, her fifth husband, is set to stand trial in April 2024.
She still faces a conspiracy to murder charge in Arizona for the death of her fourth husband, Charles Vallow, who was shot dead by Vallow’s brother Alex Cox in Arizona in July 2019.
She could also face charges in the attempted murder of Brandon Boudreaux, who was the husband of her niece.