Lori Vallow, the Idaho woman convicted of killing two of her children and plotting to kill others as part of what she described as a religious prophecy, recently sent a message to her only surviving child.
Colby Ryan, now an adult, appeared on a panel at CrimeCon 2025 in Denver on Friday, Sept. 5. The discussion was hosted by journalist Nate Eaton, who revealed that Vallow had learned about the event and sent him a note for her son.
“If you talk to Colby, please tell him that ‘I love you very much, no matter what,’ ” Vallow’s message read, according to a clip Eaton shared on X and Instagram.
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She added, “You can ask him about [Bible verse] Matthew 25.”
Eaton explained that he looked up the verse, which refers to the parables of “the wheat and the tares” and “the 10 virgins.” He then asked Ryan what he thought the message meant.
Ryan responded that it seemed like his mother’s attempt to make herself appear “godly.”
“It’s her trying to talk about the wicked and the good being sifted apart, basically. So it’s her way of trying to say she is still good and, basically, godly,” he said.
When asked if he had any desire to reconnect with his mother, Ryan answered simply, “No.”
In 2023, Vallow was convicted of the 2019 murders of her two younger children, 7-year-old Joshua Jaxon “J.J.” Vallow and 16-year-old Tylee Ryan. She received a life sentence. Her then-husband, Chad Daybell, was also convicted of murder for their deaths.
At one point, Vallow allegedly told a friend that Tylee and J.J. were “zombies” and that she and Daybell were on a mission to destroy them before the second coming of Jesus Christ.
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“[T]he term ‘zombie’ refers to an individual whose mortal spirit has left their body and that their body is now the host of another spirit,” Rexburg Police Department Lt. Ron Ball wrote in an affidavit obtained by PEOPLE. “The new spirit in a ‘zombie’ is always considered a ‘dark spirit.’ ”
Vallow was also convicted of conspiring to kill Chad Daybell’s first wife, Tammy Daybell. In June, she was found guilty of plotting to kill Brandon Boudreaux, her niece’s ex-husband, according to the Associated Press. Both cases were from 2019.
She is currently serving multiple consecutive life sentences, per CNN.
