Lori Vallow's only living son Colby Ryan tells her on heated jail call 'you ripped my heart out' after the death of his siblings
Netflix
- A jail call between Lori Vallow and her only surviving son was played for an Idaho jury Tuesday.
- Colby Ryan told his mother he wished he could hit her new husband in the face with a shovel.
- His siblings' remains were found buried on that man's property in June 2020.
An emotional 2020 jail call between Lori Vallow and her adult son Colby Ryan was played Tuesday for the Idaho jury who will decide whether or not the cult mom is guilty in the murder of her two youngest children.
On the call, Ryan told his mother he wished he could bash her husband, apocalyptic novelist Chad Daybell, "in the face with a shovel."
"You murdered my siblings!" Colby, Vallow's only surviving child, said. "I thought I could trust you, I thought that you were a completely different person."
Vallow and her fifth husband Chad Daybell have both been charged with multiple counts of conspiracy, murder, and grand theft in connection with the deaths of Vallow's two youngest children: 7-year-old Joshua "J.J." Vallow and his teenage sister, Tylee Ryan, last seen in 2019. The children's remains were found buried on Daybell's property.
The pair are also charged in connection to the death of Daybell's then-wife, Tammy Daybell.
On Tuesday, Ryan took the stand for the prosecution in the case against his mother, telling the jury about conversations they had about the insurance policies of her two dead husbands. He also testified about receiving messages from Tylee's phone after she disappeared that didn't sound like she had written them.
Jurors then heard the heated jail call from the summer of 2020, when Vallow was being held in an Idaho jail shortly after police discovered the children's remains.
On the call, Vallow protested her innocence and repeated that Colby did not fully understand the situation.
After Ryan called her a killer, she said: "I'm sorry you feel that way."
Vallow suggested in the call that Tylee and J.J. supported her from the afterlife.
"Tylee and J.J., they know exactly what happened," Vallow told Colby. "They love me and we will be together forever."
Colby shouted at his mother that she had become radically different since meeting Daybell, who wrote novels about past lives, eternal souls, and Armageddon.
"Chad Daybell came into your life and everything changed," Colby shouted. "Why are you following Chad Daybell down the rabbit hole?"
During the call, Colby shouted the words "murderer" and "buried in your new husband's backyard."
He also reminded his mother that she had sworn his siblings were OK and how betrayed he felt over getting text messages sent from his sister's phone after she was already dead.
"I was deceived and I was broken by my own mother," he said. "I can't tell you the amount of pain I have felt."
"I feel like I could die," he added. "You ripped my heart out."
Vallow raised her voice to defend her mothering. She reminded Colby of the many days she said she spent in the hospital with Tylee, who suffered pancreatitis, and the attention she had lavished on J.J, who was diagnosed autistic.
"I did everything for them," she said, arguing that she deserved protection from the murder allegations she is facing.
"You know who needed protection? My little dead siblings!" Ryan said. "I would've taken those kids in one second."
Vallow said people were making the wrong "judgments."
"They think they know what happened," she said. "One day you will know, we will all stand there with Jesus."
After Colby retorted "pure blasphemy," Vallow giggled in a high-pitched voice.
"You're laughing like this is funny!" Colby said in the call.
"It's nice to talk to you," Vallow said, cheerily. "One day you will understand."
Jurors listened with stunned looks on their faces. Around the courtroom, the sniffles of people crying were audible.
Vallow also appeared to cry.
After the call finished playing, Colby did not look at his mother as he walked out of the courtroom. She followed him with her eyes as she clenched the corners of her mouth.