Sins of Our Mother Review: Don’t Follow Cults, Guys
Skye Borgman’s true crime documentary series Sins of Our Mother is about the life of Lori Vallow, whose life has been full of ups and downs and questions.
Netflix says this about the show:
WHEN LORI VALLOW’S CHILDREN DISAPPEARED, THE SEARCH FOR THEM UNVEILED A TRAIL OF SUSPICIOUS DEATHS, A NEW HUSBAND WHO SHARED HER APOCALYPSE VIEWS – AND A MURDER.
Our mother’s sins
This review of Sins of Our Mother reveals nothing.
Sins of Our Mother begins with real footage from the night Lori Vallow’s children disappeared without a trace, like American Murder: The Family Next Door. It was both interesting and scary to watch. So, is Netflix’s new true crime show as good as its other big ones?
Our Mother’s Sins is largely driven by religion, and the show is keen to show us how religion and trauma can shape our lives and derail us. It can’t be easy being so attached to your religion and going through three divorces. The show makes it clear that the LDS Church doesn’t like divorces, so there must have been some sort of reaction in your own mind, right?
On top of that, the trauma of being in multiple abusive relationships must have made her even more vulnerable to more abuse and religious extremism. This is exactly what happened. It’s interesting how accurate the show is when it comes to depicting different parts of Lori’s life with help from people who knew her, primarily her eldest son Colby Ryan.
The story isn’t just about Lori, though. It’s also about the shocking people in her life, like Chad Daybell, another LDS Church member who made Lori even angrier. When it shows up early, you can feel the tension in your bones. You know it’s not going to be okay.
As the story progresses and you hear everyone involved plead their case, you can’t help but be sad when you realize that some (or many) people in the world have such a vision. distorted from the world that it would lead to them doing something extreme. You also feel anger and resentment when you think about how selfish people can be because, let’s be honest, Lori’s actions are nothing short of selfish.
Chad and Lori’s relationship shows how two toxic people can help each other ruin their own lives and those around them. Sins of Our Mother brings this idea to light. As you listen to Lori’s friends and family, you realize that they too have been hurt by someone close to them. The documentary wants to be the main object. Their thoughts and experiences take center stage as we piece together Lori’s slow, gradual descent into literal madness.
It’s also good to know that the show is in no way trying to make you feel sorry for Lori. Like I said, Sins of Our Mothers tells how and why something so bad happened. He doesn’t make excuses for the people who did it, and he doesn’t try to make us feel bad about the possible brainwashing and trauma that led to an unthinkable tragedy. However, I felt sorry for Colby. This man has been through too much since a young age because the adults in his life have disappointed him so much.
I think this is going to be hard and confusing to watch for anyone who’s upset about religion and too much talk of the “light side” and the “dark side” and all that. There are so many rankings and kills based on who has more light or dark, whatever that means, that you can’t help but wonder what to do with that information. It makes sense in the story, but there are times when it seems too much and hard to believe, like when another religious person is brought in to explain something. It’s strange and it does me a lot of good.
Sins of Our Mother does what documentaries usually do. There are many photos, videos and recordings of the people involved in this sad story, as well as re-enactments. The interviews take place in familiar and intimate settings, which, for some strange reason, makes what the interviewees say even more shocking.
The show is also very dramatic and sometimes a bit cheesy, which, to be honest, isn’t really necessary for true crime shows. The crimes themselves are shocking, so you don’t need to get overly dramatic with how you tell the story. I think Sins of Our Mother went a little overboard and got a little more dramatic than necessary. Whichever way you look at it, it’s shocking and sad, and it’ll make you pay attention.
Our mother’s sins
Our mother’s sins
From start to finish, Sins of Our Mother is a wild ride. It’s about more than mental health. It’s a great show to watch if you like true crime stories and want to get really excited for three episodes.
Who is Lori Vallow?
Vallow was born Lori Cox and raised in San Bernardino, California. When she was young, she married twice. In 1996, when she got married for the second time to William Lagioia, she had a son named Colby. Throughout the documentary, Colby is interviewed.
Then, in 2001, Vallow married Joseph Anthony Ryan Jr., and Ryan took in Colby as his own child. In 2002, Vallow and Ryan’s daughter Tylee was born. They broke up in 2005. A year later, she married Charles Vallow and they raised her great-nephew, Joshua Jaxon “JJ” Vallow, as their own.
Until now, Vallow was considered the perfect mother. In the documentary, there is footage of her at that time saying, “It’s very important to me to be a good mother and a good wife.” Colby, his son, adds: “We were a big family before that.”
Enter Chad Daybell
In 2015, Vallow began reading books written by Chad Daybell, a religious preacher who believed the end of the world was near and people could be categorized from light to dark. People who were “dark” were controlled by the devil, and people who were “light” were “followers of Jesus Christ.”
The first time they met was at a Preparing The People event in Arizona in 2018. Daybell told Vallow they’ve been married seven times before. A few months later, in 2019, she became less close to her family. JJ’s grandparents, Larry Woodcock and Kay Vallow Woodcock, said on KLSTV that she “just disappeared”. She wasn’t there at all for 58 days.
At this point, Charles Vallow filed for divorce in February 2019, claiming Lori threatened to kill him and took $35,000 from their bank account. ABC15 says he got a protective order against Lori because he “really feared for his life.”
This fear turned out to be true because Alex Cox, Lori’s brother, killed Charles five months later. Charles hit Cox with a baseball bat, so Cox said he did it to protect himself. Surprisingly, the police did not investigate further.
Lori Vallow told JJ’s school in September 2019 that she was taking him out of school to homeschool him. Since September 23, he has not been seen again. The last time anyone saw Tylee in public was September 8.
Meanwhile, Daybell’s wife, Tammy, died in October under very strange circumstances. Daybell says she died of “natural causes” ten days after calling police to say a masked intruder had tried to shoot her. At the time, there was no autopsy or autopsy. However, his body was later dug up and an investigation was carried out. The case was re-examined, but the results were never made public.
After two weeks, Lori Vallow and Daybell fled to Hawaii, where they got married without JJ or Tylee. Back in Rexburg, when JJ’s grandmother told the police he hadn’t been seen in weeks, they did a welfare check. Lori Vallow told police he was with family in Arizona. The next day, with the FBI hot on their trail, she and her brother packed up and left.
They stayed away from the police for the next three months, until Lori Vallow’s Rexburg storage unit was searched. They found clothes, bicycles and pictures of children there. Vallow and his brother were seen moving items in and out of the locker on video before fleeing. Vallow and Daybell were arrested on February 20, 2020. In June 2020, the bodies of JJ and Tylee were found buried in a pet cemetery when Daybell’s home was searched.
Where’s the deal now?
Tamara, Tylee and JJ were killed in March 2021, and Vallow and Daybell have been charged in their deaths. In June 2021, Lori Vallow was charged with conspiring to kill her husband Charles by an Arizona grand jury. Vallow was previously deemed incompetent to stand trial due to her mental health, but as of April 2022 she is now deemed competent. Both Vallow and Daybell have said they are innocent, so their cases will be heard together in January 2023.
What does the director of the documentary series say?
Borgman told E! News, “Lori Vallow has a lot of different sides.” Like a mother, sister or wife… and a lie. I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure what drove Lori to do such horrible things. But to find an answer, we have to look at Lori through the eyes of the people who knew her best.
You can watch Sins of Our Mother on Netflix.
