‘Cult mom’ Lori Vallow’s son speaks out in wake of siblings’ deaths

‘She was being really shady about it before she cut everybody, including me, off,’ Colby Ryan says

The surviving son of Doomsday mom Lori Vallow has said that he couldn’t get a straight answer out of her when he asked about where his younger siblings were.

Ms Vallow, 48, is facing murder charges alongside her 52-year-old husband Chad Daybell following the deaths of Tyree Ryan, 17, and Joshua Vallow, 7.

“I asked her 100 times, ‘What’s going on?’” 26-year-old Colby Ryan toldThe Sun.

“And the only answer I ever got was, ‘Everything’s going to be revealed soon,’” he added.

Court documents state that if Ms Vallow and Mr Daybell are convicted of first-degree murder, prosecutors will ask for the death penalty.

When the children disappeared in 2019, they weren’t reported missing by the couple, police have said. They also didn’t help detectives working to find the children.

They fled to Idaho and then moved on to Hawaii, where they were apprehended. The kids’ burned bodies were discovered close to Mr Daybell’s home in an improvised cemetery months after they vanished.

Ms Vallow has pleaded not guilty and her lawyers argued that she’s mentally unfit to stand trial, but after spending 11 months in a mental hospital, she was considered to be able to understand the charges against her.

When the children disappeared, the couple was allegedly part of a doomsday prepper group called Preparing a People, which they joined in 2018.

Lori Vallow Daybell during a hearing in 2020 (AP)

Chad Daybell (AP)

A friend of Ms Vallow said she thought her children were possessed by evil spirits and could be turned into zombies.

“Pretty early on [after the disappearances] I reached out to my mom and she cut everybody, including me, off,” Mr Ryan toldThe Sun.

“And then obviously, you’re going to start questioning, ‘Is everyone alive? Are they okay? What if the worst has happened?’ But you can’t think like that,” he said.

Joshua "JJ" Vallow and Tylee Ryan, the missing children whose mother Lori Vallow Daybell has been found on Hawaii living with her new husband Chad Daybell (AP)

“There was a lot of back-and-forth and a lot of fear,” he added. “But I had to keep faith also that there was a possibility nothing happened because I couldn’t imagine anything happening, especially with my mom.”

“In my mind, there was just absolutely 100 per cent no way that she would hurt them,” he said.