If you like true crime series, you are certainly not at a loss for content; there seems to be a never-ending stream of new true crime dramas and documentaries over the past few years. The newest to arrive on the scene is the Netflix docuseries Sins of Our Mother — which has more to offer, however, than just being an intriguing story. It, like a few other recent true crime shows, follows a crime born out of the LDS Church. Not only is Sins of Our Mother shocking, but it shows yet another, strange angle of LDS thinking.
For those who were less familiar with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or LDS Church, you’ve probably heard about it over the course of the last year. Conversations about the church have been popping up a lot more as a result of two popular shows which follow crimes that occurred in relation to the church. Another popular Netflix docuseries, Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey, followed FLDS crimes that were committed under cult leader Warren Jeffs. This series showed how belief in the church allowed people to get wrapped up in Jeffs' cult and put their children in harm's way.
Just a few months prior to the premiere of Keep Sweet was the start of FX on Hulu’s Under the Banner of Heaven, a drama based on the true story of a double murder among followers of the church. These two shows told true stories about LDS characters in two completely different ways. While most of us don’t know much about this group, there are plenty of ways to learn more, with the uptick of content being made about it piquing viewer interest. Now, just a few months later, Sins of Our Mother has arrived on the scene, and its perspective on the LDS church is, once again, very different.
RELATED: 'Under the Banner of Heaven': How Much of the Miniseries Is True?
What Is the Story of 'Sins of Our Mother'?
This series follows the story of Lori Vallow and the disappearance of her two children in 2020. Growing up, Vallow's family belonged to and believed in the LDS church, and Vallow became particularly engrossed in it as she got older. Over time, she became captivated by the books and teachings of author and fellow LDS believer Chad Daybell. Vallow ended up getting personally and eventually romantically involved with Daybell, and began to believe in his absurd teachings and off-the-wall interpretations of the church. By the docuseries' end, it seems that the pair's beliefs resulted in five murders. Daybell believed that he had been reincarnated many times and that there were light people walking the earth who were ruled by Jesus, as well as "dark" people walking the earth who were ruled by Satan. Daybell even created a complex ranking system to label the extent to which everyone was ruled by Satan. Daybell and Vallow believed that it was their duty to kill anyone who they deemed "dark" before the fast-approaching end of the world. It's also important to note that Vallow believed that she was the reincarnated wife of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism.
Since the recent influx in content about the LDS Church, it's very likely that more than ever, viewers are interested in the strange mystery behind this religious group. Like the others, Sins of our Mother is also about crimes that were born out of a kind of understanding of the LDS Church gone wrong. While this series is bizarre and disturbing like the others, its account of a very niche and strange result of the LDS Church puts a new twist on this group that many viewers are eager to learn more about.
To suggest that the crimes recounted in Sins of our Mother are as much an immediate result of the LDS Church as Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey and Under the Banner of Heaven would be a misrepresentation, since it's clear that Chad Daybell's bizarre fanfiction spin-offs of the church's beliefs paved the path for the murders that took place. Still, it's interesting just how these three series all have a similar fire that's started with the same exact spark: the LDS Church. It's what happens in between that makes all of these stories different. Yet, in each of these true tales, susceptible people are affected by the teachings of the church, they get too immersed in it, and in the end, tragedy occurs. Each of these shows highlights yet another new way in which this kind of devout thinking like this can get so out of control.
'Sins of Our Mother' Is More Than Just a Case of Religion Gone Wrong
It's difficult not to add Sins of Our Mother to this list and consider it just another story about how people who are devoutly committed to righteousness seem to become the most distantly separated from morality. There is one moment in Sins of Our Mother that sticks out in drawing attention to this: when Vallow's only living son, Colby Ryan, speaks with his mother on the phone while she is in police custody for the disappearance of her children. He urges her to think about Jesus and reconnect with the root of her devout beliefs. He attempts to get her to explain how she could think what she has done is right, but she is too immersed in her paranoid delusions to see the truth.
The irony that's painfully present in each of these shows is that in their desperate attempts at clinging to being "good," people who get wrapped up in the LDS Church find themselves running into the arms of the exact thing that they believed they were so dead set against. The notion of people killing others because they believe their victims are followers of Satan seems as though they don't understand even the first thing about the Bible and what it has to say. Yet, to watch Sins of Our Mother is to gain an understanding of just how the people who are most susceptible to becoming detached from reality are just the ones who will cling to these kinds of beliefs. Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey, Under the Banner of Heaven, and Sins of Our Mother may be very different stories on the surface, but together they tell the story of how people fall prey to the promise of their fears being dispelled and turn to the exact dark side that they claim to fight so hard against.
Sins of Our Mother is now available to stream on Netflix.
