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Lori Vallow Daybell’s only surviving son took the stand Tuesday at his mother’s trial over the murders of his younger siblings, and accused her of lying to him and posing as his dead sister in text messages.

Colby Ryan delivered emotional testimony Tuesday morning in the case against his 49-year-old mother, who is accused of killing 16-year-old Tylee Ryan and 7-year-old JJ Vallow with her newest husband, Chad Daybell, according to East Idaho News reporter Nate Eaton, who reported from inside the courtroom.

The pair, prosecutors allege, espoused beliefs about zombies and said they were called upon by God to shepherd the 144,000 followers into the end of the world and the second coming of Christ. Vallow Daybell allegedly believed people either represented light or dark – the latter of which were those who had signed contracts with the devil.

According to her alleged beliefs, the only way for some people to lose their “dark” spiritual attachments was through spiritual castings, or their deaths.

Ryan — Vallow Daybell’s oldest and only surviving son — sat on the witness stand as the jury of 10 men and eight women heard a jail call from Aug. 3, 2020 between the pair.

“Can you hear me? Do you want to talk to me?” Vallow Daybell can be heard asking, according to the report. The call took place just months after investigators discovered the remains of both children on Chad Daybell’s Rexburg, Idaho, property.

“Do you think you can hide to me?” Ryan reportedly responds.

When his mother says Ryan didn’t want to speak to her, he responds: “Probably because you murdered my siblings.

“I have prayed for you in my worst moments, I have prayed for my siblings who you swore to me were ok. I thought I could trust you. I thought that you were a completely different person.”

When Vallow Daybell tells Ryan he has known her his whole life, he retorts, “I don’t know a murderous mother.”

“It kills me to watch you take the victim’s route and say this shouldn’t have happened to you when you are telling me that Chad Daybell came into your life and all of a sudden everything changes,” he says, according to the report.

“You lied to me specifically to me more times than I can count about this. To know that they’re gone and you knew and my phone’s being texted by my little sister who is not even alive. My little brother, who is the sweetest little kid ever…”

Vallow Daybell reportedly laughs as her son says Jesus would judge her. She goes on to say Ryan and the world can judge her.

JJ and Tylee, she says, “love me and they are fine and they know the truth and we are the only people that do.”

Ryan allegedly begins to shout in the jail call as he describes how the kids were “found buried in your new husband’s backyard.”

Vallow Daybell goes on to tell her son that the truth will ultimately be revealed.

“My own mom, my siblings, my whole family, my dad – everyone is gone except my mom and you’re in jail because of it,” Ryan says, according to the report. “Why are you following Chad down the rabbit hole? Why would you follow anyone who is not good? … You can’t lie to me anymore. You can’t hide anymore.”

He reportedly adds: “I pray every day. No matter how mad I am at you, no matter how bad I want to hit your husband in the face with a shovel, I pray for you, I pray for him.”

Earlier in his testimony, Ryan began crying Tuesday as he identified his siblings in photos shown by prosecutor Rob Wood. He told the court he could not locate or contact his phone after police notified him in November 2019 about their search for his younger siblings.

“She just told me she was moving somewhere cold and it was dangerous for her to tell anybody,” Ryan testified, according to the report

Vallow Daybell appeared to wipe her eyes during portions of her son’s testimony.

The accused killer is being tried separately from her now-husband, Daybell, who is accused of similar charges.

In addition to Tylee’s and JJ’s murders, prosecutors have linked the couple to the October 2019 death of Daybell’s former wife, Tammy Daybell, 49. The couple then collected social security benefits and life insurance money related to the three deaths, prosecutors said.

Vallow-Daybell is charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy and grand theft. She has also been indicted in the Arizona death of her estranged husband, Charles Vallow.

Defense attorneys have appeared to try to pin the blame for Charles’ death on Daybell or Vallow Daybell’s brother, Alex Cox, who has since died.

Vallow Daybell was arrested in May 2021 and later spent nine months in a mental health hospital before she was deemed fit for trial in April 2022.

The trial, is curerntly in its second week and is expected to last several more.

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