The Doomsday Mother: Lori Vallow, Chad Daybell, and the End of an American Family
In The Doomsday Mother, bestselling true crime author John Glatt tells the twisted tale of Lori Vallow, accused of having her two children murdered to start a new life with her new husband, doomsday prepper Chad Daybell.
At first, the residents of Kauai Beach Resort took little notice of their new neighbors. The glamorous blonde and her tall husband fit the image of the ritzy gated community. The couple seemed to keep to themselves—until the police knocked on their door with a search warrant. Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell had fled to Hawaii in the midst of being investigated for the disappearance of Lori’s children back in Idaho—Tylee and JJ—who hadn’t been seen alive in five months.
For years, Lori Vallow had been devoted to her children and her Mormon faith. But when her path crossed with Chad Daybell, a religious zealot who taught his followers how to prepare for the end-times, the tumultuous relationship transformed her into someone unrecognizable. As authorities searched for Lori’s children, they uncovered more suspicious deaths with links to both Lori and Chad, including the death of Lori’s third and fourth husbands, her brother, and Chad’s wife. In June 2020, the gruesome remains of JJ and Tylee were discovered on Chad’s property, and the newlyweds were arrested and charged with murder. And in a shocking development, horrifying statements revealed that the couple’s fanatical beliefs had convinced them the children had become zombies--a belief that may have led to their deaths.
Bestselling author and journalist John Glatt takes readers deeper into the devastating story of Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell in an attempt to unravel the lethal relationship of this doomsday couple.
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Community Reviews
Before this year, I had never heard of Lori Vallow or Chad Daybell, which was surprising considering how high profile their case was. But after reading When the Moon Turns to Blood by Leah Sottile, I was instantly fascinated by how far these two people went to justify their crazy religious delusions of doomsday. So of course I wanted to read this book to see how it compared and if I learned anything new about the case.
This book was honestly a bit disappointing. It reads like the author just took a bullet point list of the timeline of events and made them into paragraphs, without actually weaving it into a story. If this was my first introduction to this case, I would have DNF this book and moved on. But since I knew the timeline of events, I stuck with this audiobook to see how Glatt presented the case and if anything new was added, which he didn’t.
Glatt just throws you into the story of Lori Vallow and how it leads to her meeting Chad Daybell and multiple murders. But he never explains why doomsday prepping is so widespread in Mormon religion or really anything about the Mormon religion. So for a title labeled Doomsday Mother, it didn’t really talk about that aspect of this case and why it is such a key component to understand how these doomsday delusions lead to this secular cult and murder.
My other issue with Glatt’s writing is that he sexualizes Lori and the other women. It is not necessary to discuss Lori’s appearance when she was a cheerleader or when she was in a pageant. It just was very off putting and gross, especially in a nonfiction that is supposed to be presenting the facts of a case, not the author's opinion.
Basically, while I think this presents the facts of the case it also leaves behind a lot of the context about Mormonism’s influence on these events. I suggest picking up When the Moon Turns to Blood by Leah Suttle instead.
TW: murder; pedophilia; child kidnapping, death; torture; racism; gun violence;
Although this is fairly easy to read (engaging storytelling), I felt like the author was either in such a hurry to publish that he didn’t do his research, or he purposely didn’t do his research to make the story more sensational (trust me, it doesn’t need MORE sensational). It is so hard to read blatantly false information about a religion, but then to have it completely misconstrued to make the narrative more unbelievable is just dishonest and poor writing. After reading this, I wish that the other book about this case had been picked instead. Just awful.
I had no prior knowledge of the specifics of this case, though I seem to remember seeing some headlines around the time when it was all happening. This book was a good snapshot into the case, a very superficial glimpse at a timeline of events. As someone who has a background in evangelical religion, I would have really liked more expertise and a deeper view on how their cult and religion merged and how it deviated. While I'm not a Mormon, I really do believe that for some people, there is a fine line between an orthodox religion and an authoritative cult mindset.
There are a lot of things that this book could have included - interviewing law enforcement, psychologists, and other experts would've benefitted the veracity of John Glatt's take (barring the sexist overtones - there's no excuse for that :/).
But it was an easy read that I was able to finish, and as someone whose depression has created mental health struggles to finish books in recent years, this kept my attention and was engaging enough for me to enjoy. It gave a very brief overview of the case just as the trial kicks off.
As someone who never really kept up with the case details other than what was presented in the media, the book does contain a good chronological order of events. My problem with the book is Glatt shares a lot of his own mixed in opinions as well as lots of sexual comments regarding the women in the book. Especially Lori who is obviously the one being investigated for murduring her children.