When extremism lies in wait: more than a true crime story

Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell, a couple from Rexburg, Idaho, are accused of murdering two of Vallow’s children.

Northwest journalist Leah Sottile has written a book about the case: "When the Moon Turns to Blood: Lori Vallow, Chad Daybell, and a Story of Murder, Wild Faith, and End Times."

Three years ago, Sottile realized the story was much more than true crime tabloid fodder, when she learned about Vallow’s path from the Mormon church to having cult-like religious beliefs. She talked to KUOW’s Kim Malcolm about what she learned.

The following are excerpts from our interview with Leah Sottile, presented in the author's words:

I've been writing about extremism in the United States for a long time.

I've specifically written a lot about people at the fringes of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church.) I started looking at the case and realized people were missing something about the story. It wasn't just about this pretty mom and her missing kids, and a potential murder caper. It was something about extremism in the western United States. That was what got me started on it.

In November 2019, police in Rexburg, Idaho, came to Lori Vallow’s door.

They asked about her children. Some family members had called with concerns. Vallow gave an excuse that they were out of state visiting a friend. Then she disappeared. That was where the story started. Where did she go? Did she disappear into some kind of bunker somewhere with her kids? After being missing for a couple of months, Lori Vallow was found in Hawaii vacationing without her children. Where were her kids if she was in Hawaii? Those were the initial questions people were asking about her.

The police extradited her back to Idaho.

She continued to stay silent on the matter of where her children were. For months, she sat in jail quietly not saying anything about where her missing children were. In June 2020, the FBI and authorities in Rexburg found the bodies of her two children. They were buried in Lori Vallow’s new husband's backyard. And of course, then he was arrested.

Neither of them has been convicted of the murder of these children, but they're accused of several deaths, the children and other people, and that will all go to trial next January. The book is really a questioning of how someone who seemed to be such a loving mother, a very religious woman, someone who would show up at neighbor's doors with money if they were having trouble. How did she take such a hard turn? It's about these fringe beliefs that have long simmered at the edges of the LDS church that are very much not recognizable to any mainstream Mormons, and how those beliefs seem to have a whole culture around them, specifically in the western United States.

A lot of my reporting was around Chad Daybell, Lori’s husband.

He's actually her fifth husband. He's a prolific writer of LDS fiction, which I didn’t know about until I started writing this book. Chad wrote a ton of books really grounded in his Mormonism. But over time, you could see a progression. He started to say, I'm talking about things in these books that are actually what could happen in the future. He started to see himself as something of a visionary and a prophet. And he was really lauded for that within this specific culture of hardcore preppers, survivalists in the LDS church.

I've written a lot about the far right, but I've also written a lot about fringe cultures within America. This story was at the intersection of both of those things. I started to realize that to understand how the fringes of the LDS church operate, you have to understand this culture of prepping and survivalism and where that started.

The Vallow-Daybell story has really been relegated to tabloid coverage.

I think part of that is because Lori Vallow is a former beauty queen, cheerleader, and supposedly amazing mother. One thing I started to notice was that the victims started to get kind of lost in this mystique, of the murderess and all the people dying around her. That's what I want people to understand. There were children victimized here. When a community doesn't speak up, the most innocent people can pay the price. Extremist ideologies don't always wear a costume. Someone with extremist ideas could be sitting next to you in church. And it may really be up to you to say something. We've seen time and time again, these far-right ideologies, whether they're religious, white supremacist, or anti-government, end poorly. They end in violence.

I think that we're living right now in a time of real fear.

And that was something Daybell and Vallow trafficked in. They knew that people were very afraid of what they were seeing happen in the country politically. I have learned over the years writing about extremism that extremist ideologies and ideologues kind of lie in wait, waiting for people to be afraid. When people get really afraid, they offer an answer. They offer explanations. They offer solutions. And I think that everyone is vulnerable to that. When people talk about the end of the world — the world is going to end, when that gets goes to the Nth degree, really bad things can happen, because that's where extremists wait and offer answers. In this case, it led to a lot of people dying.

Listen to the interview by clicking the play button above.

Please note: This interview contains descriptions of violence.