Convicted murderer Lori Vallow to be extradited to Arizona, prosecutors announce after Idaho trial
The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office say they have submitted a request following murder conviction
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Convicted child killer Lori Vallow is expected to be extradited to Arizona following her sentencing for the murder of her two youngest children in Idaho.
Vallow, 49, was found guilty of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and grand theft over the deaths of her daughter Tylee Ryan, 16, and son Joshua “JJ” Vallow, 7, in Ada County Court in Boise, Idaho, on Friday.
She was also found guilty of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in the death of her doomsday preacher husband Chad Daybell’s first wife Tammy, 49.
Following the verdict, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office announced that they have submitted a request to extradite Vallow to Arizona, where she is facing charges of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in the death of her previous husband Charles Vallow.
The MCAO said they expect the extradition to take place once Vallow is sentenced and transferred to the Idaho Department of Corrections.
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“The extradition can take from several weeks to several months,” the office said in a statement. “Because this is a pending matter, this office will not provide any further comment, including any charging decisions made by this office.
Dressed in a black suit, with her blonde hair down in waves around her shoulders, Vallow stood between her two attorneys as the verdict was read out.
She showed no reaction or glimmer of emotion as she learned that the jury had returned a verdict of guilty on all six charges – paving the way for a lifetime behind bars.
After the verdict was read out, JJ’s grandparents Larry and Kay Woodcock choked up with emotion as they spoke to reporters outside the courthouse and sent a powerful message to their grandson’s killer.
“My final message for Lori,” said Mr Woodcock, before breaking into the song “The party’s over” – a song that he and JJ used to sing together.
“Turn out the lights, the party’s over. They say that all good things must end,” he sang.
Mr Woodcock vowed that the conviction of the mother-of-three “is not the end of this” as the family would return to face her at her sentencing in around 90 days’ time and that they will also continue to fight for justice in the upcoming Arizona trial.
The Woodcocks – who raised the alarm about the missing children back in 2019 – attended every day of the trial of the woman now convicted of their seven-year-old grandson’s murder, listening to harrowing testimony of the little boy’s last hours alive and seeing graphic photos of his remains buried on Mr Daybell’s property.
JJ and Tylee vanished without a trace back in September 2019, with their mother refusing to reveal their whereabouts to both authorities and the children’s desperate family members. One month later, Tammy – an otherwise healthy 49-year-old – also died suddenly. Her death was initially ruled natural causes.
This bizarre spate of disappearances and death came just months after Vallow’s fourth husband Charles Vallow was shot dead by Vallow’s brother Alex Cox in Arizona in July 2019. Cox, who died in 2019, claimed self-defence.
With Vallow’s children and both of their spouses then out of the way, she and Mr Daybell embarked on a new life together – flying to Hawaii to get married in a fairytale wedding on the beach.
In June 2020 – nine months after they were last seen alive – Tylee and JJ’s remains were found buried on the grounds of Mr Daybell’s property in Rexburg, Idaho.
In what marked the first time Ms Vallow has turned on her lover in the almost three years for the case to go to trial, her attorney Jim Archibald sought to paint her as a hardworking “good mom” whose life suddenly unraveLled when she met Mr Daybell.
“One year after meeting Chad, four people are dead,” said Mr Archibald.
The defence attorney argued that Ms Vallow was “under the control” of the doomsday author, under the spell of the “craziness” of his cult beliefs.
The defence attorney went on to blame the murders of Tylee and JJ squarely on Mr Daybell and Cox saying that there was no evidence placing Ms Vallow on the scene of the three murders or on Mr Daybell’s property when the children were buried there.
Ultimately, the panel of 12 jurors disagreed and found the evidence showed, beyond reasonable doubt, that Vallow murdered her children and conspired to murder her love rival.
Mr Daybell was due to stand trial with Vallow but the cases were severed weeks before her day in court.
He is now due to stand trial in 2024 over the three murders.