Lori Vallow's Dead Husband Claimed She Said Odd Things

The case of Lori Vallow's missing kids has made headlines for months—and the Idaho mom's gallivanting around Hawaii with current husband Chad Daybell has grabbed press in recent days. They're the couple who fled Idaho in November as police began asking questions about Lori's 7-year-old adopted son, JJ, and her 17-year-old daughter, Tylee Ryan, who hadn't been seen since September. It's hardly the only odd element of their story, which also includes dead former spouses and a fixation on the end of times, and those odd elements are the ones Zaron Burnett III digs into for Mel Magazine. Lori's fourth husband, Charles Vallow, was killed in July by Lori's brother, Alex Cole. Though his death was ruled as self-defense, it's now being reinvestigated. In Burnett's telling, things between the couple had soured by the preceding Valentine's Day.

That was the day Charles completed divorce paperwork that claimed Lori had told him that she was "a translated being who cannot taste death" and also "a God assigned to carry out the work" to prepare for "Christ’s second coming in July 2020." Charles filed an order of protection with the divorce papers that stated, "I want to make sure that everyone knows that if something happens to me, Lori & Alex did it." But he rescinded those papers and signed a new lease with Lori in June. The next month he messaged his landlord to say he was moving out. The next day he was dead. As for where Daybell fits in, Lori had reportedly discovered his apocalyptic Mormon novels and become obsessed with them. And as for Cole's side of the story, well, he's dead too. (Read the full story for more.)