It’s been a while since I read a true crime book (I think) but I had Children of Darkness and Light on my TBR because I remember reading and enjoying Under the Banner of Heaven almost a decade ago (link to my Goodreads review because that review was from an even older blog!).

Children of Darkness and Light is about the Vallow-Daybell murders. It’s a very strange case – on the face of it, it looks like a couple who decided to get rid of their other halves and unwanted children so they could leave the life that they dreamed, but if you dig deeper, it’s a cult in the making, with claims of being goddesses, supernatural powers, the 144,000 elect, and much more.

What I appreciated about this book is that, like with Under the Banner of Heaven, it goes into detail about the beliefs of Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell and contextualises it. Both Lori and Chad belonged, or at least started from, a strand of neo-fundamentalist Mormonism, and Hellis takes great pains to show how this way of thinking relates back to the mainstream Church, and where it differs. This helps explain how Lori managed to bring other women into their way of thinking and how the two of them were able to operate largely undetected among the mainstream Church.

For most of the book, the focus is on explaning and contextualising Vallow and Daybell’s beliefs. The second half of the book diverges a little, as the author also takes pains to explain the American justice system. Honestly, I felt that this part was not as interesting, but after I found out that Hellis is also a lawyer, this sudden second narrative strand made sense.

While the book is pretty thorough, I still would have liked to hear more about two topics:

1. From reading Wikipedia, it seemed that Lori’s parents adhered to Sovereign Citizen ideology. I’d have liked to know how this upbringing was different from those around her and if that would have contributed to her leaning towards a fringe movement of Mormon theology.
2. There is a brief mention of a true crime vlogger leaking case documents during the trial. Given how recent the case is, I wonder what the impact social media and true crime fans had on the case and it would have been interesting to explore this idea if it could be worked into the overall narrative arc of the book.

Overall, this was a disturbing case, written about clearly and in a way that explains the possible religious motivations that, alongside Lori and Chad’s affair, led to the murders of Lori’s children, her husband Charles, and Chad’s wife Tammy. If you’re interested in true crime but tend to avoid more sensationalist coverage, I think this book might be up your alley – overall I found it to be measured and explained this previously-unknown case in an understandable fashion.