In a newly obtained audio recording, Lori Vallow can reportedly be heard talking about her desire to kill her ex-husband Joseph Ryan, years after he died of an apparent heart attack.
Ryan was the father of Lori Vallow’s daughter Tylee, who was found dead along with her 7-year-old brother Joshua “JJ” Vallow in the Idaho backyard of Vallow’s husband Chad Daybell.
Ryan died in 2018, several years after his acrimonious divorce from Vallow, whose now-adult son said this year that Ryan sexually abused him. Tylee Ryan also suggested during childhood therapy sessions that Ryan was abusive, as CrimeOnline previously reported.
Ryan’s sister Annie Cushing, who has been pushing for investigators to take another look at her brother’s death, reportedly obtained an audio recording of Vallow talking about her relationship with Ryan. Cushing shared the recording with the Idaho Falls Post Register, reportedly telling the news outlet that a reliable source, who she declined to identify, gave her the recording that was taken at a meeting for “Preparing a People,” a religious group that was reportedly led by Daybell. Vallow is believed to have become involved in the group only in the last two or three years.
According to the report, Vallow is heard discussing her life and earlier struggles with the group.
“I had been married to someone who was very awful, who raped my children, and I had divorced him and gotten away from him,” Vallow reportedly said, apparently referring to Ryan. She told the group about the couple’s custody battles, and accused Ryan of trying to get custody of Tylee primarily to take revenge on her mother.
When Ryan successfully petitioned for shared custody of Tylee, Vallow decided she would kill him, she reportedly told the group:
“I was going to murder him. I was going to kill him. Like the scriptures say. Like Nephi killed. Just to stop the pain and to stop him coming after me and to stop him coming after my children. I just thought I couldn’t take it anymore. And I would go through the scriptures and find all the things. Like: ‘If he comes against you once, if he comes against you twice, if he comes against you three times then you can kill him.’ It says it in the scriptures in the Book of Mormon. I was like there it is. There’s my answer. I don’t want to do anything that’s wrong. I did not have a murderous heart. I just wanted to stop the bleeding and stop the pain. And so someone wise was speaking to me and said, ‘You need to go to the temple.’
“So I went and met with my bishop, and I was like, ‘I’m either going to turn my life to the temple or I’m going to commit murder.”
Vallow reportedly said that she obtained the required permission from the church to visit at temple. At that point, she abandoned plans to murder Ryan and focused on her faith, she said.
In the recording, Vallow and others in the group, like her friend Melanie Gibb, also speak about the coming end of days. As CrimeOnline previously reported, Vallow and the Preparing a People group believed the world would end in July 2020, a prophecy that was not fulfilled.
Click here to read all of CrimeOnline’s coverage of the Vallow-Daybell case.
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