You Have to Watch the Trailer For Netflix’s New Docuseries About Idaho’s Doomsday Mom

Since February 2020, the twisted case of Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell has been featured on Dateline, Dr. Phil, 48 Hours and 20/20. It was even turned into a Lifetime movie. 

If you’ve lost track of the case, the story begins back in 2019. Vallow and her two youngest children, 17-year-old Tylee Ryan and 7-year-old JJ Vallow moved to Idaho in August, shortly after her ex-husband, Charles Vallow, was shot and killed by Lori’s brother. Vallow, the kids and her brother took a family vacation to Yellowstone that September. That was the last time anyone saw the kids alive. 

When Chad and Lori met, they were both married to other people. Lori was married to Vallow, who would go on to file for divorce in February 2019. He eventually called the divorce. Chad was married to his wife of 19 years, Tammy. Tammy died in October 2019. Chad and Lori were married weeks later. 

JJ’s grandparents asked the Rexburg Police Department to do a welfare check after not hearing from their grandson in months. Lori lied about his whereabouts when they visited her home. Days later, Chad and Lori leave for Hawaii, without their kids. By January 2020, the Kuai Police Department stepped in to help the Rexburg Police Department find the children by serving notice to Lori that she must produce the kids to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare. She failed to do so and was eventually arrested in Kaui that February. 

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Chad wasn’t arrested until June 2020 when human remains were found on his property in Idaho. They were, sadly, the bodies of Tylee and JJ. Now the couple awaits their trial for conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and grand theft by deception charges. It’s scheduled to begin in January 2023. 

Of course, that’s the short version of the case. The full timeline includes involvement in a doomsday religious cult, an investigation into Daybell’s first wife’s death and claims that the children had become zombies. 

We’re likely to hear even more twisted stories when The Sins of our Mother debuts on Netflix on September 14. The three-episode docuseries is directed by Skye Borgman, the woman responsible for Abducted in Plain Sight. The 2017 documentary told the story of how Jan Broberg was abducted from her Pocatello home not once, but twice by the same man. The family shared some uncomfortably raw stories about their relationship with the man who abducted Jan and why they let him get disgustingly close to their 12-year-old. 

We may get more moments like that in the Vallow-Daybell docuseries. The full trailer for the series shows a phone call between Lori and her only living child, Colby Ryan. It’s unclear when the phone call took place, but when Vallow apologizes Ryan point blank asks “Are you sorry for me or for my siblings?” 

The Netflix synopsis reads: 

“For the first time, Lori’s surviving son Colby steps forward to provide exclusive insight into his family’s backstory as well as their present-tense narrative as Lori faces justice. At the heart of this three-part series is a single burning question: how did a seemingly normal woman become the most notorious mother in America?”

You can watch the full trailer below and the full series on Netflix beginning September 14. While it will no doubt be popular and attract a lot of viewers, locally, many have already criticized the documentary for airing prior to the trial. Nationally, there’s a lot of interest in the series because, as YouTube commenters explain “Netflix is killing it with documentaries lately.”