When the Moon Turns to Blood

June 13, 2022
Investigative journalist Sottile debuts with a look at a series of horrific murders that’s marred by her frequently injecting herself into the narrative and drawing sweeping, unsupported statements about the tragedy’s meaning. In 2019, Lori Vallow’s 16-year-old daughter, Tylee, and her seven-year-old autistic son, J.J., were murdered, their corpses buried on the Idaho property of Vallow’s fifth husband, Chad Daybell, the author of multiple books about the apocalypse. The bodies were only found following efforts by the children’s grandparents to contact them, efforts stymied by Vallow’s multiple lies about their whereabouts. Vallow and Daybell have both been charged with the murders and are suspected of killing other family members. Sottile opens with a prologue about unrelated crimes, a 2005 triple murder, which she presents as a learning experience for this case (“I had a feeling that one day, when I was ready, I’d need to know how to unwind a complicated case like it and make sense of some kind of similar horror”). This case is especially resistant to glib explanations, with a determination as to Vallow’s mental state and fitness for trial still unsettled, as well as the motive for the murders; nonetheless, Sottile opines that “the case could be an allegory for the rest of the world, for everything happening right now in this country.” Her attempts to impose broader significance will fall flat for many. John Glatt’s The Doomsday Mother: Lori Vallow, Chad Daybell, and the End of an American Family remains the definitive account to date. Agent: Joe Veltre, Gersh Agency.

Starred review from May 1, 2022
Lori Vallow was a picture-perfect Mormon mother, raising her teenage daughter, Tylee, and seven-year-old son, JJ, with her husband, Charles. However, in 2018, Lori's faith took a turn. She became obsessed with the book of Revelation and the second coming of Jesus Christ, befriended doomsday preppers, and began speaking about visions from beyond. After meeting gravedigger turned doomsday novelist Chad Daybell, the two began a relationship predicated on Chad's belief that they had been married for eternity. Chad and Lori also believed they were chosen to lead the true believers who would be spared from God's wrath during the apocalypse. Chad convinced Lori that dark spirits had overtaken many of their loved ones, including Lori's husband and children. When Tylee and JJ went missing in late 2019, extended family members quickly alerted authorities of Lori's newfound religious beliefs. This book, wide in scope and remarkable for its timeliness, is a riveting account of the entire case (which is currently awaiting trial), including an exquisitely researched history of LDS and its fringe offshoots. The story of Vallow and Daybell is disturbing for both its callous gore and its reflections of dark corners of American extremism.

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