Lori Vallow's Change in Faith
In Sins of Our Mother's first episode, her mother Janis Cox spoke about Lori as a child, describing her as "just a darling little girl." Raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Janis said, "Lori always loved the scriptures. She took to it right away."
Always connected to her faith, Lori's former sister-in-law Annie Cushing claimed, "Her telling of the story was God told her she was going to be on Wheel of Fortune. She had to have that extra validation."
But, according to Janis, Lori's beliefs became much more extreme in 2018 after she met Chad Daybell, who believed there was an impending apocalypse and that only the people that are righteous will survive.
"Belief will really take you to a different place," Colby Ryan, Lori's son from her second marriage, shared. "You believe so deeply that you think you have to do these things and my mom because she's so deep in her belief I think that it just makes her harder to reach. She's still in fantasy land."
Intense Phone Conversations
"Well, I'm definitely sorry about that. I never meant to cause you any pain of any sort, of any kind. I never wanted to."
That is what Lori tells Colby from jail during one of their taped phone conversations featured in the series, in which Colby attempted multiple times to get answers from his mother about what happened to his younger siblings. "So you were there so you saw everything that happened?" a defensive Lori responded at one point. "That's interesting."
After Colby says he misses his family, Lori replied, "I know baby. Me too. So do I...how can I not? They're my babies."
But when a frustrated-sounded Colby asked why Tylee and JJ weren't protected, Lori answers, "I've done everything to protect them their whole lives as you know. I love you, but you don't know. You will see one day."
Speaking to the camera, Colby said, "Do you hear how crazy that is? To listen to her actually try to flip the script is unbelievable."
Colby said his mother often referenced the story of Abraham, who was asked by God to sacrifice his son, Isaac, during their conversations. "Why would you even say that?" Colby wondered.
Charles Vallow's Death
Lori's fourth husband was killed in July 2019 when he was shot multiple times by her brother, Alex Cox, who maintained he acted in self-defense, according to court documents obtained by Phoenix's Fox 10. (Cox died in December 2019.) Prior to his death, Charles had tried reaching out to Lori's family about her behavior, but Colby said in the series that Lori said Charles had been cheating on her.
"He was just saying that she is out of her mind now and 'this is not your mom, Colby,' I didn't know what that meant at all," Colby recalled of what Charles told him. "I was like, 'What are you talking about? You are sounding more crazy than you say she is.' At that time, it looked like guilty person was freaking out because they got caught, so I just stopped talking to him."
Janis also didn't believe Charles' story, especially after Lori underwent a psych evaluation in 2019, which Charles reportedly filed a petition with Community Bridges Healthcare to request, according to court documents and police camera footage shown in Sins of Our Mother.
"We all thought, well, she didn't get committed. So, what are we going to say?" Janis explained. "They interviewed Lori and they interviewed Charles and the cops at the time thought Charles was nuttier than Lori."
But after Charles was killed, Lori allegedly told multiple lies regarding the circumstances of his death, according to Colby. Initially, as detailed in the series, she told JJ's school that Charles had committed suicide and when she called Colby, she told him Charles had a heart attack. Colby said he didn't discover the truth until he arrived at the house and heard the true story from a "devastated" Tylee.
"This is my dad, this is really the father figure of my life, who has been there for as long as I can remember back to," Colby said, "and the fact that she would lie about how Charles died still blows my mind."
The Last Encounter
Both Colby and Janis recalled the last time they saw Tylee in person before the teenager, JJ and Lori moved to Idaho shortly after Charles' death, with Colby recalling his mother "was saying people are after her, she made it seem like she had enemies," he said in Sins of Our Mother.
"It was hard to say goodbye to Ty-Ty," Colby continued. "She was crying and she just looked really upset. She didn't talk. She didn't tell me where they were going. I don't even know what she knew. I just remember giving her this pathetic hug."
Janis said she also noticed how sad Tylee seemed and detailed their last encounter.
"I said, 'Are you going to be okay little doll?' And she just burst into tears," an emotional Janis shared. "I was hugging her and I asked her, 'What's wrong? And she said, 'I'm okay Mimi, I got everything I need. I just needed to cry, So, we just sat there and hugged for a long time."
Lori and the children left the following day, with Colby saying he was "so worried" about them, but explained he was focused on his own family as he and his wife Kelsee welcomed their first child.
But Colby started to get "weird" text messages from Tylee's number that, to him, didn't sound like his sister. "I called my mom and confronted her and she acted really weird about Tylee but she tried to convince me Tylee was in school," he said. "She tries to reassure me and put it away."
Unconvinced, Colby said he then texted Tylee asking her to call him, "And that's when she stopped." Soon thereafter, Tylee's phone was shut off, he said.
The First Time
Prior to Lori's bail bond hearing in March 2020, Colby had never seen Chad in person.
"I locked eyes with him and I was like, 'I just want to come punch you in the face,'" Colby recalled. "I looked at him and he looked scared. I saw him cower. I know there's something wrong with you."
Even harder than being in the same room as Chad, Colby said, was witnessing Lori's dynamic with her fifth husband.
"I remember how she looked at him," he reflected. "You're looking at him as like, there is something there. You don't know him. How have you had enough time to get comfortable enough to be in a bad situation to look at him and find comfort?"
Colby's Alleged Childhood Abuse
While Colby said Tylee's father and Lori's third husband, Joseph Ryan, was "a very sweet person in the beginning," Colby (whose biological father is William Lagioia) alleged Joe began abusing him when he was 8 years old. (Joe died of a heart attack in 2018.)
"I don't know if he started to be annoyed by me as a little kid, but everything I did was annoying to him," Colby said. "It just got worse and worse and it just got to the point where he would punch me in the back of the head. I'm just a little kid an I'm scared. I'm looking to her to save me from him.
"One day, I'll never forget, we left and it felt like freedom. I never wanted to see him again," he continued. "But I remember telling my mom about the sexual abuse. I didn't even know how to explain what had happened, but I told her how he abused me and what he was doing. I just remember her being silent, I remember feeling like I did something wrong. I felt like I ruined her life. That was the breaking point for her."
In recordings purportedly surfaced from an October 2018 religious gathering that were shared with EastIdahoNews.com by her former sister in-law, Annie Cushing, Lori is heard saying Joe's alleged abuse of Colby is what turned her to the "temple," explaining, "I was going to murder him. So, I went and met my bishop and I was like, 'I'm either going to commit my life to the temple or I'm going to commit murder."
Monster-in-Law
After he began dating his future wife Kelsee, Colby said Lori had an issue with there being a new woman in his life. "From that point," he said, "everything just started being a problem."
Lori was initially upset Colby went to a Christian church with Kelsee, who said, "It was more about control for Lori than everything. She was just very passive-aggressive. She was always competing with me for Colby's love and attention.
She continued, "I just always had an off feeling about her. She would say really random, off-the-wall things, like, 'Jesus loves you, but he loves me the most.'"
Kelsee also detailed a "weird" moment at her and Colby's wedding: "We did all my family pictures and then we were about to do pictured with his family and Tylee was missing...and they were like, 'She was on a ski trip.' And we were like, 'What?'" Colby added, "Literally, still to this day, it breaks my heart that we don't have a family picture with Tylee from our wedding."
Annie Cushing, Lori's former sister-in-law, said she noticed "a shift" in her after the wedding.
"She became so sad and there was a transition in how she talked about her religion," Annie explained. "She was genuinely frightened. She actually went so far as to say it's going to be so scary, sometimes I think it would be easier to go off the side of a cliff in a car with my kids than to live through the end times."
Janis' Regret
In May 2020, Lori's mom Janis and sister Summer Cox Shiflet sat down with CBS' 48 Hours and defended Lori, insisting she would never do anything to hurt her children.
"The first time she called from the jail, she said, 'The kids are fine, you know what kind of mother I am, I would never hurt the kids,'" Janis explained during Sins of Our Mother. "She said they were in a very safe place. I didn't think they were missing….I thought it was important to tell the truth about my family."
Colby did not agree with his grandmother and aunt's decision to do the CBS interview. "I remember how dumb I thought it was to say anything," he said. "I thought it was a really bad move to defend her at that point. I was mad at her for defending my mom, but I also realized she's defensive of the people she loves."
Looking back, Janis said in Sins of Our Mother, "They were right, we were wrong. I should never say I know again. I don't really know. Who knew it would get worse?"
After her niece and nephew's remains were positively identified in June 2020, Summer took to Facebook to admit that she was wrong, though she was going to continue to see where the investigation went.
"Tylee and JJ are completely irreplaceable in our family," she wrote. "I have loved them greatly all of their lives. There are no words that can capture this loss. Words are just inadequate. We have dozens of Tylee and JJ stories that we love and share frequently. We had prayed our hearts out for them and hoped with all of our hearts they were safe. But we sadly have to face this new reality and our family will never ever be the same."
Taking Back Kauai
The docuseries ends on a poignant moment for Colby, who traveled back to the Hawaiian beach he visited with his family to do a memorial for his siblings and father figure, Charles.
"It's to honor them and to remember then and this is the place," Colby explained. "I'm so grateful that this gets to happen here. It was such a happy place, my mother and my sister loved being here and I remember the things we did here."
Colby began his tribute by addressing Charles, saying, "I just want to thank you for being my dad. I know you never deserved what happened to you, but I wouldn't have the life I have without you."
He then addressed JJ: "I just can't tell you how much I love you. You're the greatest little brother anybody could ever ask for."
Finally, Colby said, "Tylee, you made me a big brother and I'll never forget how much I immediately fell in love with you and wanted to protect you from everything in life. And I love all of you. And I'm grateful for all of you."
Kauai is where Lori married Chad in November 2019 and Colby recalled seeing the footage from their ceremony earlier in the series.
"It was so deflating to see them together, in Kauai of all places, and there's no trace of the kids," he said. "Where are they? Why aren't the kids behind you?"