‘Cult mum’ Lori Vallow was pictured in her photo with her dyed blonde hair fading and a smug smile on her suddenly aged face.
The image is in stark contrast to the hairy, blonde, wrinkle-free mother she presented to herself during a five-week trial.
Vallow, 49, was found guilty last week of murdering her two children – JJ, seven, and Tylee, 16 – in 2019.
Authorities said their mother, newly romantically involved with Doomsday cult enthusiast Chad Daybell, avoided questioning and evaded authorities after the children disappeared in September.
She then fled to Hawaii, refusing to tell the police the whereabouts of her children or to answer all kinds of questions not only about her children, but about the vast web of death and deceit that seemed to engulf her family.
Vallow now faces life in prison, while Daybell’s trial remains on hold.
She was also extradited to Arizona to be charged with conspiracy to murder her fourth husband, Charles Vallow.
Lori Vallow, 49, is pictured in a Madison County jail photo. She was found guilty last week of murdering her two children
Vallow killed Joshua (JJ), seven, left, and Tylee, 16, right, and evaded authorities afterwards
In 2020, police discovered the remains of JJ and Tylee in shallow graves in Chad Daybell’s yard
Vallow had come under intense scrutiny shortly after her children disappeared in September 2019.
In the aftermath, local authorities began investigating all deaths related to Vallow and Daybell.
Tammy Daybell was Chad’s wife when he met Lori and the mother of their children. She passed away suddenly in October 2019.
Initially, his death was ruled as the result of natural causes.
After attention turned to Lori and Chad, she was exhumed and reexamined.
An autopsy—which Daybell had refused the night of her death—shows that she died of asphyxiation, the same cause of death that would later be determined for JJ.
Vallow was finally arrested in Hawaii in February 2020 – five months after JJ and Tylee were last seen alive.
The children would not be found for four months, in shallow graves in Daybell’s backyard.
JJ had been suffocated with a plastic bag, while Tylee’s corpse was so badly burned and dismembered that it is still unclear how she was killed.
The 49-year-old was unmoved as the verdict was read aloud in Boise, Idaho. His defense team called no witnesses and offered no explanation for the children’s deaths.
In court, prosecutors argued that Vallow was driven by “money, power and sex” and that she used all three of these things to achieve her twisted ends.
Jurors heard how they viewed his children and Daybell’s wife as “impediments” to the romantic life they envisioned for themselves in Hawaii.
Prosecutors said Vallow and Daybell believed – or chose to believe – that those who stood in their way were “dark” possessed individuals they referred to as “zombies.”
“Remember, the defendant will remove any obstacle in her path to get what she wants, and she wanted Chad Daybell,” prosecutor Lindsey Blake told jurors.
“The defendant used money, power and sex to get what she wanted.”
When the children’s bodies were finally found, authorities said, JJ’s body was wrapped in trash bags with duct tape binding his arms in front of him and wrapping around his head.
He had been suffocated in a plastic bag.
All that was left of Tylee, meanwhile, were charred remains.
“You’ll hear it explained as a mass of bone and tissue,” Blake said. “That was what was left of this beautiful young woman.
Tylee’s DNA was later found on a pickaxe and shovel in a shed on the property.
