Lori Vallow Update: New Emails Show Mother Wondered If Her Children Had ‘Light Or Dark’ Spirits

New emails recently uncovered by Fox10 Phoenix continue to deepen the bizarre mystery surrounding Lori Vallow and her missing children. In these emails, obtained by reporter Justin Lum, Vallow asked her future husband, Chad Daybell, to help determine if her two children had “light or dark spirits.”

Daybell responded to Vallow’s request on Oct. 30, 2018, roughly 11 months before Vallow’s children – Tylee Ryan, 17, and J.J. Vallow, 7 – were last seen. Family and friends have not seen the two minors since September and Lori Vallow has been unable to produce them for authorities despite claiming that they are safe. She is currently on trial in Idaho on charges of child desertion and non-support of a dependent child.

“Current numbers on Earth at this time of each estate level,” Daybell, an author of doomsday fiction, said in his email. “These totals represent the 'light' spirits. The 'dark' has equal parts.”

Attached to his email, Daybell included a rubric for determining light and dark spirits. He told Vallow that he had calculated her daughter as being a “4.1 dark spirit” and her son as being “a light spirit, level 4.2.”

“You cannot just go and test and say, 'OK, this person is a 4.1 dark,’” said Julie Rowe, author and former friend of Daybell.

Rowe, who laments defending Daybell in the past, now believes he is teaching “false doctrine.”

“If that isn’t a cult leader, I don’t know what it is,” she said. “That’s where I am now, because he was going around, saying things in people’s homes, going to people now. Whether they joined a cult or realized that’s what he was trying to do or not, he won’t call it a cult. I think he thinks he’s starting a church.”

Beyond Lori Vallow’s children, her relationship with Daybell has been marked by numerous deaths of close family members. In July 2019, Vallow’s previous husband, Charles Vallow, was shot and killed by her brother, Alex Cox, allegedly in self-defense. Cox later died in December. Only 11 days before Vallow and Daybell married on Nov. 5, Daybell’s former wife, Tammy, died at the couple’s home in Idaho. Daybell is now being investigated in connection with Tammy’s death.