Lori Vallow Declared Restored To Competency To Stand Trial For Kids’ Murder

After months of delays, Lori Vallow has been ruled competent to stand trial for the murder of her children. 

District Judge Steven Boyce issued a court order on Monday ruling that Vallow, 48, has been restored to competency and is now fit to stand trial.

Vallow faces 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. 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.

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 order staying the case has officially been lifted and an arraignment has now been scheduled for the afternoon of April 19.

Vallow and Daybell, a doomsday author, were allegedly planning for the apocalypse and had 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 to death at an 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.