When the Moon Turns to Blood: Lori Vallow, Chad Daybell, and a Story of Murder, Wild Faith, and End Times

by Leah Sottile

Overview

"WHEN THE MOON TURNS TO BLOOD is a harrowing and fascinating tale of apocalyptic obsession and murder. Leah Sottile leads us down every head-shaking twist and turn of the case, an expert guide to the dark tributaries of religious extremism that run closer to the American mainstream than we’d ever like to believe."―Jess Walter, American author of Ruby Ridge

On the heels of the sensational murder trial and shocking verdict, WHEN THE MOON TURNS TO BLOOD examines the culture of end times paranoia and a trail of mysterious deaths surrounding former beauty queen Lori Vallow and her husband, grave digger turned doomsday novelist, Chad Daybell.

When police in Rexburg, Idaho perform a wellness check on seven J.J. Vallow and his sister, sixteen-year-old Tylee Ryan, both children are nowhere to be found. Their mother, Lori Vallow, gives a phony explanation, and when officers return the following day with a search warrant, she, too, is gone. As the police begin to close in, a larger web of mystery, murder, fanaticism and deceit begins to unravel.

Vallow’s case is sinuously complex. As investigators prod further, they find the accused Black Widow has an unusual number of bodies piling up around her.
 
WHEN THE MOON TURNS TO BLOOD tells a gripping story of extreme beliefs, snake oil prophets, and explores the question: if it feels like the world is ending, how are people supposed to act?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538721339
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	11/07/2023
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	158,027
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Leah Sottile’s investigations, longform features, profiles, and essays have been published by the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Atavist, Outside, and the Atlantic, among others. She is host of the podcasts Two Minutes Past Nine, on BBC Radio 4, and Bundyville—which was nominated twice for a National Magazine Award. She lives in Oregon.

Table of Contents

Author's Note vii

Character List xi

Prologue: Missing Children, 2005 1

Part 1 The End

Chapter 1 Rexburg, Idaho. November 26, 2019 9

Chapter 2 December 8, 2019 19

Chapter 3 Hawaii. February 2020 25

Chapter 4 Salem, Idaho. June 9, 2020 31

Part 2 The Beginning

Chapter 5 The Book of Revelation 37

Chapter 6 Southern California. 1991 53

Chapter 7 Utah. 1991 69

Part 3 The Rise of the White Horse

Chapter 8 Patriot Prophets 91

Chapter 9 Spring Creek Book Company 107

Chapter 10 Texas 125

Chapter 11 Arizona 137

Chapter 12 Voices 145

Chapter 13 Preparing a People 161

Part 4 Coven

Chapter 14 James and Elena 175

Chapter 15 Winter 2019 195

Chapter 16 June and July 2019 213

Chapter 17 The Rest of the Summer, 2019 229

Part 5 The Fall

Chapter 18 Autumn 2019 237

Chapter 19 Blood Atonement 247

Part 6 Belief

Chapter 20 Tylee 269

Chapter 21 2020 279

Epilogue: Cognitive Dissonance 285

Acknowledgments 297

A Note on Sources 299

About the Author 305

Editorial Reviews

06/13/2022

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. (June)

Publishers Weekly

In When the Moon Turns to Blood, [Sottile] uses the expertise she developed on projects such as the podcast Bundyland to turn one of the most sensational stories of the decade into a meditative look at how our surroundings influence us to the core.”

—Vanity Fair

"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."—Booklist Starred Review

"WHEN THE MOON TURNS TO BLOOD is a harrowing and fascinating tale of apocalyptic obsession and murder. Leah Sottile leads us down every head-shaking twist and turn of the case, an expert guide to the dark tributaries of religious extremism that run closer to the American mainstream than we’d ever like to believe."—Jess Walter, American author of seven novels, including #1 New York Times bestseller Beautiful Ruins

“Through scrupulous reporting and a powerful narrative, Leah Sottile takes us into a dark world of dysfunctional families, perverted faith, false prophets and true psychopaths to show us that the human mind is the scariest realm of all. An important contribution to the literature of true crime.”—Mark Olshaker, coauthor of Mindhunter, The Killer Across the Table, and When a Killer Calls

“Leah Sottile’s brilliant, unnerving WHEN THE MOON TURNS TO BLOOD weaves the story of one family’s tragedy into an exploration of end-times radicalism that spans generations. It belongs on the short list of essential books about religious extremism and violence in the West.”—Shawn Vestal, Columnist at The Spokesman-Review and author of Godforsaken Idaho

“Leah Sottile makes chilling murders into a gripping cultural study.”

—Spokesman-Review

"Beyond a crime story, Sottile weaves a ripper of tale - chilling, haunting, cautionary too! - that unveils the dangerous desire for acceptance on the fringes, and amid uncertain times. Insanely researched in scope, uniquely intimate in feel, buckle-up for this brave voyage into a tangled storm of ambition, lust and extremism."—Geoff Gray, author of Skyjack

"Leah Sottile is the writer every journalist dreams of being: A crackerjack investigator who has a nose for the telling details everyone else misses, and a gifted writer who can craft a moving literary narrative. Most of all, WHEN THE MOON TURNS TO BLOOD is an important book whose real subject is far more than a simple, horrifying murder case: It is a gut-wrenching fable about our upside-down, gaslit times, and what it tells us about ourselves and our susceptibility to the unreality of authoritarian conspiracism is profoundly disturbing. Everyone should read it."—David Neiwert, journalist and author of Red Pill, Blue Pill and Alt-America

“From one of the finest chroniclers of the U.S. Northwest working today, this book hooked me from the first line. In propulsive prose, Leah Sottile unspools a harrowing story of faith, violence, and fear. WHEN THE MOON TURNS TO BLOOD is a timely and provocative page-turner, as resonant as it is engrossing. In Sottile’s hands, a true crime yarn becomes a lens for examining the most pernicious aspects of far-right extremism in America.”—Seyward Darby, author of Sisters in Hate

“Leah Sottile’s When the Moon Turns to Blood recounts a haunting true crime narrative about apocalyptic ways of thinking and a series of mysterious deaths that connected to them — and led investigators to a series of harrowing discoveries.”

—Inside Hook

“In the story of a former beauty queen and an apocalypse-obsessed fiction writer, their whirlwind romance, and their apparently murderous path, Sottile found a natural source for putting her reporting skills and dedication to tracking life on the West's fringes to the test.”

—Inlander

"I think it’s a critical book for understanding 21st century Mormonism. If there’s a Mormon Studies class held anywhere in the United States or the world, this is one of the books that needs to be added to the reading list. That’s how critical I think this book is."—Dr. John Dehlin, host of The Mormon Stories podcast

From the Publisher