Lori Vallow trial draws mommy-bloggers, true-crime fanatics, and a practicing witch to Idaho courtroom
- Spectators at the Lori Vallow trial include bloggers, reporters, and at least one witch
- Vallow is accused of killing her two children.
BOISE, IDAHO — The trial of Lori Vallow, a doomsday prepper accused of killing two of her children, has drawn a devoted crowd of spectators — moms, true-crime lovers, and a practicing witch — to a Boise courthouse.
The spectators, who are mostly women, all want an up-close view of the Idaho mom who shocked Americans in 2020 when she was found vacationing in Hawaii with her new husband after her kids had been missing for months.
There are around 60 seats inside the wood-paneled courtroom, which features views of the state capital, snowy mountains, and the "cult mom" herself. Competition for those spots among spectators and journalists is fierce. The seats tend to be filled in minutes.
A majority of these spectators — more than 40 on a slow day — have been women. Many of those trial pilgrims told Insider they were drawn to the Vallow case because it has something that many true crime stories, including most of those featured on hit podcasts like "Serial" and "My Favorite Murder," do not — a mother defendant.
"Women don't usually kill their children," Ronett Thomas, 54, told Insider about why she went to watch a trial in-person for the first time in her life.
Vallow and her husband Chad Daybell are accused by prosecutors in Idaho and Arizona of perpetrating a killing spree and collecting the life insurance of the victims.
Vallow has pleaded not guilty to conspiring with her fifth husband and her brother to kill her 7-year-old adopted son JJ Vallow and teenage daughter Tylee Ryan. Tylee went missing days before her 17th birthday.
She and Daybell are also charged in the killing of Daybell's wife, Tammy.
The opportunity to see the trial was enough to lure some court viewers out of bed before dawn so they could drive hours before the start of testimony each day. Some say the case has disrupted their lives and caused them to question their faith.
Details revealed in the trial have brought tears, gasps, and visible emotional distress to those in the courtroom.
Prosecutors say that Vallow met Daybell — a one-time gravedigger who promoted his cultish doomsday beliefs in novels and on podcasts — in 2018.
They say Daybell, whom Vallow eventually married, convinced her that her family could be possessed by dark spirits and turned into "zombies" — which only death could cure.
In July 2019, prosecutors say, Vallow's brother Alex Cox shot and killed her estranged husband Charles Vallow in Chandler, Arizona. She is charged there for conspiring with her brother to carry out the killing. Cox died in 2019 of natural causes.
By the fall of 2019, after she moved to Idaho, police began their more than six month search for the missing children. In October 2019, Daybell's wife of 28 years was found dead.
Two weeks later, Vallow and Daybell wed on a Hawaiian beach, and in June 2020 police found the mutilated remains of Tylee and J.J. buried under Daybell's Salem, Idaho, back pasture.
True-crime lovers have snapped illicit photos in the Lori Vallow trial, disrupting testimony
Public fascination with the case, which is already the subject of a book,"When the Moon Turns to Blood," and Netflix series, has strained court employees and journalists. Spectators have swiped courtroom seats from reporters away on bathroom breaks. Court officers have to routinely remind murder-mavens not to secretly take cellphone photos of Vallow, or of what one bailiff called the case's "very nervous jurors."
One morning in April, illicit photography delayed the start of testimony.
"We do have a participant who has caused a disruption," Judge Steven Boyce said from the bench, as bailiffs escorted a woman in turquoise jewelry carrying a lime green handbag out of the courtroom.
That spectator was Lori Hellis, of Meridian, Idaho, who is writing a book about the case, vlogs it on her YouTube channel, and owns the domain thelorivallowstory.com.
Outside the Ada County Courthouse, Hellis denied taking photos, as well as a report online that she had protested her expulsion by asking: "Do you know who I am?"
She has since attempted to start a hashtag campaign: #freethegoodlori.
Hellis told Insider that some of her fellow spectators are sharp-elbowed and competitive.
"There is a proprietary air to it," she said.
Some spectators surround Kay and Larry Woodcock, the kids' grandparents
On an afternoon break in the trial's second week, JJ Vallow's grandfather Larry Woodcock, a gregarious pony-tailed man in a denim suit who greets regular spectators with hugs, said he is grateful for the in-person interest.
"I appreciate it, it's very supportive to say the least," he told Insider.
As he spoke, two women who sat with him in court — providing him snacks, water, and company — walked over.
One woman identified herself as a documentary filmmaker. Another woman, whose Twitter bio describes her as a "true crime lover" and "mental health advocate," encouraged followers to exercise in order to handle the strains of following the case. She also asked them to watch a video she retweeted of JJ alive and singing a song.
Despite being tended to, Woodcock and his wife Kay have also had tearful encounters with the spectators.
One woman told Insider she approached Kay in the restroom to show a photo of her newly-adopted goldendoodle, the same breed as JJ's former dog.
In his honor, the woman named her puppy "JJ."
The spectator said Kay Woodcock cried when she heard this.
Another spectator — Alexis Norgard of Caldwell, Idaho — said she attended court because of a rumor that made her indignant: Lori Vallow practiced witchcraft.
Norgard held up her necklace with a crescent moon and the word "witch," and showed her bracelet of silver pentagrams. She said she had to see Vallow in person to know for sure what she had suspected all along: No person that evil could be a witch.
"I obviously can tell, I'm a witchcraft, pagan person," said Norgard, 45.
Norgard said she rose at 5 a.m. to feed her part-wolf, part-dog pet before the 90-minute drive to Boise.
"She's not witchcraft, she's an evil person," she told Insider.
Norgard and a friend, Carolyn Clemens, 29, a nurse and a mother of two small children, had secured seats through the court's reservation system to watch on closed-captioned television in an overflow room. When they were upgraded to the actual courtroom, they high-fived.
The trial is not being livestreamed, so only spectators who secure seating in the courtroom, overflow room, or a viewing room in the Madison County courthouse get to watch testimony.
"I'm so excited. This is my first trial," Clemens said after finding out she'd be allowed in the main courtroom. "I have to see this with my own eyes."
Lori Vallow's personality is a draw for those interested in the case
Much of the spectacle has been Vallow herself, a lithe former cheerleader and beautician who has appeared on "The Price is Right."
Far from a brooding or bashful defendant, Vallow has appeared in terms that recall her pre-arrest persona: energetic, engaging, personable, magnetic.
During the first week of trial, her ankles were chained and she was locked to the floor. By the second week, the chains were gone.
Relaxed and attentive, she often leans in, whispers, grins, prompts laughter from her two barrel-chested lawyers. She passes handwritten notes to members of her husband's defense team.
"She's always dolled up?" asked Bo Pearson, one of the few men in the courtroom, when an unshackled Vallow made her appearance.
Pearson, 47, woke at 3:30 am in his Twin Falls home, about 130 miles from Boise, to make it to court. He called it a "personal trophy" to "have this story in the book of your life."
"My infatuation is being a fly-on-the-wall of a world-renowned case," he said. "I think if I could go back in time I would visit those amazing cases, like the OJ case."
For Elizabeth Olacsi, the fascination impacted her faith.
Olacsi, 48, is a substitute teacher from Kuna, Idaho. She was born into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints — the same faith both Daybell and Vallow were brought up in.
Olacsi told Insider she was horrified by how Vallow was allegedly radicalized to commit atrocities by Daybell's gruesome interpretation of their faith.
"I look at her and I don't understand, how did she let him do it?" she said in a courtroom whisper. "It really affected my spirituality. I stopped going to church because of this."
Melanie Johnson, 67, a real estate agent, also came to the courtroom because the case changed her life.
She had lived for years in the San Francisco Bay area but grew weary of crime.
In 2019, she moved to Eagle, Idaho and thought the state was "nice and friendly," only to learn the nightmarish news about missing JJ and Tylee.
Johnson said that she looked for them wherever she went until she learned that they were dead, and that their mother may have believed they were invaded by dark spirits.
"What could possibly motivate a mother to allegedly conspire with her new lover to get rid of the zombie in her kids?" asked Johnson, who brings a cushion to court to make the long hours on hardwood benches tolerable. "I'm hoping for some conclusion."
Like Vallow, Bailey Louie is a mother of three, has long blonde locks, and also recently moved from Arizona to Idaho. A self-described "mommy blogger," Louie, 28, said she came to court because she was struck by the superficial ways she and Vallow are alike. She described being in court as, "about what I expected."
"Sickening revulsion — but fascinating too," Louie said.
For journalist Nate Eaton, though, the case is less about morbid curiosity and more about continuing to break news on a story he was on top of from the beginning.
Eaton, of East Idaho News, first sparked public interest in the case in 2019 by taking the initiative to fly from Idaho to Hawaii to confront Vallow about her missing children. At the trial, he is greeted like a star by selfie-seeking spectators.
"I am stunned at just how interested people are," Eaton said in a courthouse hallway one afternoon.
He described changing his public routines to avoid becoming overwhelmed by people eager to hear more than he is able to share in live Tweets, news reports, and daily YouTube recaps.
He believes people have fixated on the case because it is a public examination of something humans have grappled with through the ages.
"Everybody's been always curious about evil," he said.