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Judge Issues Not Guilty Pleas For Lori Vallow After She Stands Silent In Court
Lori Vallow stood silently in court when asked to enter pleas for the murder of her children Tylee Ryan and Joshua “JJ” Vallow.
An Idaho judge entered pleas of not guilty for Lori Vallow after she stood silently in court when asked to enter a plea in connection with her children’s deaths.
Vallow, 48, appeared in court on Tuesday where District Judge Steven Boyce asked her to enter pleas for first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder charges in connection with the deaths of her children Tylee Ryan, 16, and Joshua “JJ” Vallow, 7.
She said nothing and as a result, Boyce entered pleas of not guilty for her, KIFI reports.
The children’s remains were discovered in 2020 on an Idaho property belonging to Vallow's husband Chad Daybell, who also faces first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder charges in the case.
Boyce plans to hold both Vallow and Daybell's trials at the Ada County Courthouse in Boise. Both were at the courthouse on Tuesday for separate proceedings.
Tuesday marks a progression in their trials, and the court appearances come just days after it was announced that Vallow has been restored to competency. Vallow had been receiving treatment in a mental health facility after she was declared mentally unfit to stand trial in May of 2021. Prosecutors had initially opposed the judge’s related decision to stay the case, but opted to withdraw their objections after further reviewing Vallow’s psychological report and “corresponding data” by the state’s own expert, according to a court filing previously obtained by Oxygen.com. Her treatment was extended in August, and the trial was further stayed as a result. The stay was lifted on April 11.
Daybell entered his pleas of not guilty months ago.
Vallow and Daybell, a religious doomsday author, had allegedly adopted a bizarre set of religious beliefs before her children vanished. Vallow’s friend, Melanie Gibb, told investigators that Vallow had become convinced that many of her family members — including JJ and Tylee — were “zombies,” according to a probable cause statement previously obtained by Oxygen.com.
Daybell is also accused of killing his first wife Tammy Daybell, who was found dead in the couple’s home in October of 2019.
Vallow was additionally indicted in July on one count of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in the death of her fourth husband, Charles Vallow, in 2019. Lori Vallow’s brother, Alex Cox, fatally shot Charles at the Arizona home where Lori and her now-dead children were living following the couple's split. Cox had claimed that the killing was in self-defense. He was never charged and died that same year; an autopsy determined his death to be tied to a pulmonary embolism.
