The ‘doomsday mum’ accused of murdering two of her children and her husband’s ex-wife ‘used money, power and sex to get what she wanted’, prosecutors said as her trial began.

Lori Vallow Daybell, 49, and Chad Daybell, 54, are charged over the deaths of her two youngest children Joshua ‘JJ’ Vallow, seven, and Tylee Ryan, 16, as well as his ex-wife, Tammy Daybell.

The pair married in November 2019, months after her fourth husband Charles Vallow was shot dead by her brother and just two weeks after Tammy Daybell died under suspicious circumstances.

By that time, the two children were already missing in a case that gripped America, and the search would end with the horrifying discovery of their bodies buried in Chad Daybell’s yard in Idaho.

He was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a self-published author who wrote doomsday-focused fiction loosely based on church teachings.

Prosecutors say he met Vallow Daybell at a conference in Utah in 2018.

The two purportedly felt an ‘instant connection’ and claimed they had been married to each other in a past life, according to police records.

Friends of the couple told investigators the pair shared the same unusual beliefs.

Defence attorney Jim Archibald said Vallow Daybell was a ‘kind and loving mother to her children’ who happened to have an interest in religion and Biblical prophesies involving the end of the world.

He told jurors her religious beliefs only started to change after she met Chad Daybell.

Fremont County Prosecutor Lindsey Blake said the couple claimed they could differentiate between those who were ‘light’ and those who were ‘dark’ – having been taken over by evil spirits.

They eventually began teaching friends that once those evil spirits were strong enough, the person became a ‘zombie’, and the only way to free that person’s soul was by killing the body.

Ms Blake said friends of Vallow Daybell would testify that she said the children and Tammy Daybell were ‘dark’ before their deaths.

At least one friend told police that she called both children ‘zombies’ before they disappeared, according to police records.

‘The common theme was the body has to be destroyed,’ Ms Blake said.

‘The defendant and Chad used their self-proclaimed religious teachings to justify their actions to others — their actions from affair to murder.’

Prosecutors say the couple planned to use life insurance money from Tammy Daybell’s death, and that Vallow Daybell kept spending the children’s social security and survivor benefits after they died.

‘The defendant used money, power and sex to get what she wanted,’ Ms Blake told jurors during the first day of arguments. ‘It didn’t matter what it was.’

Both defendants have pleaded not guilty but are being tried separately. Chad Daybell’s trial is still months away. Vallow Daybell faces up to life in prison if convicted.

Vallow Daybell never reported her two youngest children missing, prosecutors said. Instead, Rexburg police said both she and Chad Daybell lied to investigators about the kids’ whereabouts.

The search lasted months before it came to a tragic conclusion in June 2020.

Tylee’s body had been burned, Ms Blake said, leaving behind only ‘a mass of bone and tissue’ and some DNA on a pickaxe and shovel.

Duct tape had been wrapped around JJ’s hands and head; his body wrapped in trash bags.

Tammy Daybell had died months earlier from what was initially reported as natural causes, purportedly dying her sleep in after coming down with an illness.

But authorities grew suspicious when they learned Chad and Lori had married just two weeks after.

With the search for the missing kids still underway, investigators had Tammy Daybell’s body exhumed.

An autopsy showed she died of asphyxiation caused by someone else, Ms Blake said.

She showed graphic photos to the jury of shallow graves, the children’s remains and Tammy Daybell’s body.

All three of the victims were killed because they were obstacles to Vallow Daybell’s romantic and financial goals, MsBlake told jurors.

‘Remember, the defendant will remove any obstacle in her way to get what she wants, and she wanted Chad Daybell,’ Ms Blake said.

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