Lori Vallow’s sister Summer Shiflet, right, testifies in court on April 25, 2023; JJ Vallow and Tylee Ryan appear inset. (Courtroom Pool Draftsman; Fremont County Sheriff’s Office)
Lori Vallow Daybell’s sister spoke out in the ongoing triple murder trial on Tuesday – at first to smiles from the defendant. But, as the witness left, the accused ‘cult mom’ killer looked dejected, defeated and broken by the testimony of his brother.
The defendant’s sister’s words transfixed jurors in Ada County, Idaho through a taped video call from June 2020. Lori Vallow asked her sister to call her then, and she accepted.
Summer Shiflet sat there, listening and wiping away her tears, as prosecutors played that jail call on Tuesday afternoon.
Summer – Did you know they were there?
Lori – I can’t talk about that.
Summer – I don’t know what to say. You know how much I love you and Alex and my stomach hurts and you let it happen to them and throw them away like trash
Lori – Do you think I let that happen? THANKS…— Pretty Lies and Alibis🎙 (@PrettyLiesAlibi) April 25, 2023
“There’s nothing good about it,” Shiflet told Vallow at one point during the recording. “Nothing.”
The accused then records her assent to this description of the state of affairs in their extended family: “Nothing about that is OK, Summer.”
Vallow and her fifth and current husband, Chad Daybell, 54, are charged with murder in the 2019 deaths of 7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow and 17-year-old Tylee Ashlyn Ryan. The children disappeared on different dates in September of the same year. Vallow was originally arrested in Hawaii in February 2020 for child abandonment. Daybell was arrested later that year after the children’s bodies were found buried on his property. The two defendants have been charged with the murder of Vallow’s children and Daybell’s first wife, Tammy Daybell, 49, in May 2021.
Originally prosecuted as husband and wife co-defendants, the couple’s cases were recently separated and will be tried separately.
Vallow asks at another point in the call, “You don’t think I’m in pain?”
“No, I don’t,” Shiflet replies. “You were dancing on the beach, you were having a great time! Got wedding photos while your kids are in the ground?”
The theme of the trip Vallow and her current husband took to Hawaii — immediately after the three murders — came up repeatedly during the video call between the two sisters.
“You went to Hawaii and you were dancing on the beach while the kids were in the ground,” Shiflet shouts at Vallow at another point, according to courtroom reports by Eastern Idaho News Director Nate Eaton. “You had to know they were there! I don’t understand! They were just little children! I don’t understand!”
“Lori, if you let this happen to them and put them in the ground like trash, I don’t know you,” Shiflet said in the call, yelling again at her sister. “We would have taken them!
Vallow at one point accuses her sister of actually being too influenced by what she sees on TV about the case.
“This has Nothing to do with what’s on TV,” Shiflet replies – noting that she previously defended her sister in TV interviews.
Shiflet then asks Vallow to tell the truth about the death of the two children. To which the accused replies: “I would love to”.
“There is nothing in the scriptures that is godly about hurting a child!” Shiflet exclaims later in the phone call. “They deserve a proper burial in a family that loves them the least!”
The grieving aunt continues to pressure her sister over photographs of Vallow and Daybell on the beach in Hawaii. The sister insists she and the rest of the family should at least have known about the children’s deaths – growing frustrated with Vallow’s claims that she, Shiflet, doesn’t understand what’s going on .
“So I was wrong? Everyone in the world is deceived? said Vallow’s sister indignantly. “I’m telling you, because I love you with all my heart, please consider that Chad lied and was cheated, and you were cheated, and it’s not what you think it is. He doesn’t There’s nothing good about killing children. Nothing.”
Observers in the courtroom reportedly cried as the call was played.
“And even though you didn’t kill them and Alex didn’t kill them, and Chad didn’t kill them, you threw them away like trash!” a sobbing Shiflet says to her sister as the call comes to an end, “In a pet cemetery!”
Lori gave Summer a big smile as she took the oath. #lorivallow@LawCrimeNetwork
— Pretty Lies and Alibis🎙 (@PrettyLiesAlibi) April 25, 2023
To me, Lori looks broken with Summer at the helm. #lorivallow@LawCrimeNetwork
— Pretty Lies and Alibis🎙 (@PrettyLiesAlibi) April 25, 2023
“SP. Shiflet, she lied to you about their safety,” Madison County Assistant District Attorney Spencer Rammell asked at one point during her testimony. The witness replied, “I believe so, yes.
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