Where Is Lori Vallow's Son Colby Ryan Now?

Jennifer Tisdale - Author
By

PUBLISHED Sep. 15 2022, 6:58 p.m. ET

UPDATED Apr. 19 2023, 6:31 p.m. ET

Colby Ryan
Source: Netflix

It's rare for a true-crime documentary to come out before the case has been closed, and some might argue that one of the many problems with true crime is a complete lack of respect or sensitivity for the real-life people involved in these stories.

Regardless, Netflix's Sins of Our Mother, which dropped on the platform in September 2022, took a deeper look at Lori Vallow, a mother turned cult leader.

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Vallow is currently standing trial for the murder of two of her children, J.J and Tylee, as well as her current husband's ex-wife, Tammy Daybell.

The documentary was told from the perspective of Vallow's oldest and only son Colby Ryan, who peeled back layers of trauma and abuse in order to try to make sense of everything that happened.

Where is Ryan, who is Vallow's only living child, now? Here's what we know.

Lori Vallow and Colby Ryan
Source: Netflix

Lori Vallow and Colby Ryan

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Where is Lori Vallow's son Colby Ryan now? He took the stand during his mother's trial in April 2023.

Ryan took the stand for the prosecution in his mother's triple-murder trial on April 19, 2023. Just as he shared in the documentary, Ryan is rightfully angry with his mother

Per Insider, Ryan got emotional as the prosecutors showed him photos of his deceased siblings J.J. and Tylee. An emotional 2020 jail call between Vallow and Ryan was played for the jury.

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In the call, Ryan accused his mom of lying to him multiple times while his brother and sister were missing. He even said that she had someone texting him from Tylee's phone to make it seem like she was still alive.

"You murdered my siblings!" he is heard saying at one point during the call. "I thought I could trust you, I thought that you were a completely different person."

Ryan reiterated that she was a murderer several times during the call.

After he was finished taking the stand, a teary-eyed Vallow looked at Ryan, who refused to make eye contact with her as he walked out of the courtroom.

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Colby Ryan
Source: Netflix

In addition to being in the documentary Sins of Our Mother, Ryan is also the author of the two-book series The God Over Odds, where he opens up about how God got him through a life of trauma, abuse, murder, and loss.

Ryan previously created a YouTube channel for his family dubbed "Life With The Ryans," but the page currently does not have any videos. Ryan is a father-of-two and was previously married to Kelsee Benson.

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Colby Ryan was accused of sexually assault his estranged wife Kelsee Benson in September 2022.

In Sins of Our Mother, Ryan mentioned how Vallow made it clear that she did not like his now-estranged wife Kelsee Benson because of her religious views. As Vallow's behaviors intensified, Ryan and his wife kept their distance from Vallow. But apparently, their marriage was crumbling behind the scenes.

It is unclear when they separated, but in a report from CBS News in September 2022, she was referred to as his estranged wife. At the time, Ryan was being accused of sexually assaulting her.

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According to the outlet, Ryan was watching TV with Benson at her home when they began kissing. Initially, it was consensual until Benson told Ryan to stop. Police documents noted that "Ryan's wife told police that he then sexually assaulted her while she again told him to 'Stop. I don't want to do it,' while trying to push him off of her." The following day she recorded Ryan admitting to raping her, which he also confessed to police.

The sexual assault charges against Ryan were dropped later that month, September 2022.

Colby Ryan alleges that he was sexually assaulted by his stepfather Joseph Ryan.

Vallow married her third husband, Joseph Ryan, in 2001 and remained married to him until 2004, per People. Ryan revealed in Sins of Our Mother that growing up, all he wanted was a family. When Vallow married Joseph Ryan and eventually gave birth to a little girl they named Tylee, Ryan thought he finally had everything he could ever need until things started to change with his stepfather.

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"I don't know if he started to be annoyed by me as a little kid but everything I did was annoying to him," shared Ryan. "It just got worse and worse and worse. It got to the point where he [Joseph Ryan] would punch me in the back of the head." After these incidents, Ryan would often look to his mother for help to no avail.

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Ryan said that when he was 8 years old, he told Vallow that he was sexually abused by Joseph Ryan. "I didn't even know how to explain what had happened but I told her how he abused me and what he was doing," he said very calmly. "I remember her being kind of silent. I remember feeling like I did something wrong. I felt like I ruined her life."

If you need support, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673 or visit RAINN.org to chat online one-on-one with a support specialist at any time.

Report online or in-person sexual abuse of a child or teen by calling the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-422-4453 or visiting childhelp.org. Learn more about the warning signs of child abuse at RAINN.org.

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