Series Review: "Sins of Our Mother" (2022).

From Netflix and the director of Girl in the Picture comes Sins of Our Mother. This crime documentary series directed by Skye Borgman. Lori Vallow was known to friends and family as a devoted mother of three, a loving wife, and a woman of God. But over the past three years, something went very wrong: Now Lori is in jail, waiting to stand trial for conspiracy to commit murder and first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of her fourth husband, her fifth husband’s wife, and her two youngest children. For the first time, Lori’s surviving son Colby steps forward to provide exclusive insight into his family’s backstory as well as their present-tense narrative as Lori faces justice. At the heart of this three-part series is a single burning question: how did a seemingly normal woman become the most notorious mother in America?

In September 2019, Tylee Ashlyn Ryan and Joshua Jaxon "J. J." Vallow, two American children from Chandler, Arizona, disappeared and were later found dead in June 2020 in Rexburg, Idaho. Tylee was last seen alive at Yellowstone National Park on September 8, 2019. Her younger brother, J.J., was last seen alive on September 23, 2019, at Rexburg's Kennedy Elementary School. In November 2019, police questioned the children's mother, Lori Vallow Daybell, about the children's whereabouts and welfare. Lori and her new husband, Chad Guy Daybell, claimed that J.J. was staying with family friend Melanie Gibb in Arizona. When police reached Gibb by phone, she told police that Joshua was not with her and had not been there for several months. More than a week later, Gibb called police saying that both Lori and Chad had asked her to lie to police about J.J.'s whereabouts but she refused. Police efforts to locate J.J. led to the discovery that Tylee was also missing. Complicating circumstances around the disappearances was a string of suspicious deaths. Lori's estranged husband, Charles Vallow, was shot and killed in July 2019 by her brother, Alex Cox, who claimed self-defense. In early October 2019, Brandon Boudreaux, the then-estranged husband of Lori's niece, Melani, was shot at in the driveway of his Gilbert, Arizona home from a vehicle still registered to the deceased Charles Vallow. In October 2019, Chad's wife, Tammy Daybell, was attacked in her driveway by what she believed was someone shooting a defective paintball gun. On October 19, a few weeks later, she died in her sleep from what was initially recorded as "natural causes". On June 9, 2020, police executed a search warrant at Chad's home and discovered the remains of J.J. and Tylee. Chad was arrested later that day on charges of destruction or concealment of evidence. On May 25, 2021, Lori and Chad were charged with the first degree murders of Tylee, J.J., and Tammy.

The show isn't quite as compelling, or jaw-dropping as Abducted in Plain Sight or The Girl In The Picture. But it is still a better show of its type than almost anything else out there. Recommended.

Simon says Sins of Our Mother receives:

Also, see my review for I Just Killed My Dad.