Featured Image Credit: Netflix
Topics: Crime, US News, True Crime
Rhiannon Ingle
Lori Vallow Daybell, a convicted murderer who killed her own children, has spoken out in her first-ever TV interview.
In 2023, Vallow was convicted of conspiring with her husband to kill her two children, seven-year-old Joshua 'JJ' and and 16-year-old Tylee, four years prior in 2019 as well as conspiring to murder her husband Chad Daybell's first wife, Tamara 'Tammy' Daybell.
In the bombshell, interview, Vallow denied any wrongdoing in all three deaths and claimed that the media's portrayal of her throughout the trial was 'exaggerated'.
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The 31-year-old, a devout Mormon from Idaho, joined a fringe sect of Mormonism led by her fifth husband, Daybell, a self-published author who wrote biblical and apocalyptic fiction, believing she was in 'communication with angels' and that the world would end in 2020.
However, when JJ and Tylee went missing in September 2019, a media storm soon ensued prompting a nationwide hunt.
Vallow, who was in a 'doomsday cult' at the time which was rooted in the Latter Day Saints teachings she and Daybell followed but was not directly related to it, was eventually arrested in January 2020 when she failed to produce her children for concerned authorities after insisting that they were safe.
Just months later in June, the remains of both children were discovered near the home of Daybell.
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Vallow pleaded not guilty to misdemeanour resisting or obstructing officers, criminal solicitation to commit a crime and contempt of court, while Daybell pleaded not guilty to all four felony counts against him; two felony counts of concealment, distribution, or alteration of evidence, and two felony counts of destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence, as per NBC News.
In May 2021, Daybell and Vallow were charged with the murders of Tylee and JJ, while Daybell was also charged with the death of his first wife Tammy Daybell, who died at the Daybell's home in 2019 - two weeks before Vallow and Daybell's marriage in Hawaii.
In 2023, Judge Steven Boyce sentenced Vallow to three consecutive life terms without parole for the three murders.
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"The most unimaginable type of murder is to have a mother murdering her own children, and that's exactly what you did," Judge Boyce said as per the BBC.
Vallow denied killing her two children telling the court at the time, saying she had spoken to Jesus and that both her children and Tammy were 'happy and extremely busy' in heaven.
"Jesus Christ knows that no-one was murdered in this case," she said.
The mum also claimed the spirits of the three victims visited her and assured her she 'didn't do anything wrong'.
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Now, in a new interview (7 March) with NBC Dateline correspondent Keith Morrison, Vallow said: "We all know what the media does.
"They exaggerate everything and they make stuff up and they twist things around. So, I don't know how it became what it is today. It's amazing to me."
Claiming she was 'absolutely' misunderstood, she continued: "How do you know a person if you've never talked to them in five years? How do you know anything about them? How do you know anything about their life, how it really is?"
Vallow claimed she was 'not there' when her two children were murdered by her late brother, Alexander Cox, on the alleged orders of herself and Daybell.
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She also shared her confidence that both herself and Chad, who was convicted on all charges in 2024 for the three murders and subsequently sentenced to death, will be proven innocent soon, explaining: "After I get exonerated, maybe I’ll go on Dancing With the Stars and you can come."
Along with JJ, Tylee and Tammy, Vallow's estranged husband, Charles Vallow, was also killed in 2019.
Vallow pleaded not guilty to accusations that she conspired to commit the killing with her brother Alex, saying that while she was 'feeling great' about acting as her own attorney in the upcoming trial over his fatal shooting, which is set to take place on 31 March, taking on the role of a lawyer has been a 'difficult thing to do'.
Alex died of natural causes in December of 2019 and was never charged.