Doomsday cult mother Lori Vallow smirked in court on Tuesday during a procedural hearing ahead of her capital murder trial for killing her two children.
Vallow, 49, grimaced and giggled throughout the hearing in Idaho, turning to her attorneys and at times looking back into the public gallery.
She was far less fresh faced than when her family first grabbed headlines in 2020 after the disappearance of her
She is accused of murdering her two kids, 16-year-old Tylee Ryan and seven-year-old JJ Vallow, in September 2019 after becoming obsessed with the end of the world.
Their remains were found in their mother’s husband’s backyard in shallow graves in 2020.
Lori Vallow in court in Idaho on Tuesday. She has been found mentally fit to stand trial for murdering her children, JJ and Tylee, in September 2019
Vallow pulled faces throughout the hearing on Tuesday, laughing at times and turning to her attorney
Something to smile about? Vallow passed mental competency
Vallow even smirked as she was led out of court by police after the hearing
At the time of their deaths, Lori was becoming increasingly involved with Chad Daybell, a doomsday preacher who was married to a different woman at the time.
A web of death and mystery surrounds the pair; Lori’s brother previously died in mysterious circumstances as did Chad’s wife.
In November 2019, two months after JJ and Tylee vanished, Lori and Chad wed in a secret Hawaii beach wedding.
It took months for them to be arrested, during which time Lori and Chad were living in Hawaii.
The pair have refused to confess to police what happened to the kids.
JJ’s body was found near a tree in Chad’s backyard and his sister’s body was discovered nearby in the man’s pet cemetery.
It was near where Lori’s brother’s phone had pinged.
Lori with her daughter Tylee, whose body was found buried in Lori’s husband’s yard in June 2020 in his pet cemetery
Seven-year-old JJ was also found buried in the backyard of Chad Daybell’s
Joshua ‘JJ’ Vallow, left, and Tylee Ryan, right, were last seen in September 2019. Their bodies were eventually discovered buried on Chad Daybell’s property after a nine-month search
Chad’s children have spoken out previously about their belief that Lori is setting him up, and that she and her dead brother Alex Cox are responsible for the kids’ deaths.
Lori refused to enter a plea on the murder charges so a judge entered a not guilty plea on her behalf.
Her trial is due to begin in October.
Chad was Lori’s fifth husband. Her fourth husband, Charles, was shot dead in an altercation in her home involving her brother.
Lori’s 26-year-old son from a previous marriage told how she would tell him ominously that ‘everything’s going to be revealed soon’ whenever he asked about what had happened to the two younger kids.
Colby Ryan, 26, said he was still struggling to accept the charges against his mother.