If you have any interest in true-crime stories, you are probably familiar with Lindsey Blake. The Idaho lawyer prosecuted and won convictions against Chad Daybell and his new wife, Lori Vallow Daybell, in a widely publicized case involving doomsday religious beliefs and the murders of family members, including Vallow Daybell's two minor children.
Blake serves as the Fremont County, Idaho, prosecutor, and she grew up working on her parents' potato farms not far from the St. Anthony office where she now practices law.
After graduating from the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law, Blake practiced law in Wyoming, Utah and Teton County, Idaho, before returning home in 2020, when she was elected county prosecutor. She lives in St. Anthony with her significant other and son. Blake, a Republican, was elected for a second time in 2024, with nobody challenging her in the primary.
She says she knows the people in the county. According to her, they have a strong work ethic and a friendly attitude. "It's a pretty safe, welcoming place where I feel at home," Blake, 41, says. "I feel like I am contributing back to a community that has supported me and means a lot to me."
As a rural prosecutor, Blake was an unlikely candidate for national media attention. But when she landed back in Fremont County, she took on the prosecutions of Chad and Lori Vallow Daybell. Lori Vallow Daybell was convicted in 2023 of murdering two of her children -- Tylee Ryan, 16, and Joshua Jaxon "JJ" Vallow, 7 -- as well as conspiring to murder her husband's first wife, Tammy Daybell. She received multiple fixed life sentences without the possibility of parole and has appealed. She also was convicted in April in Arizona of conspiring to kill Charles Vallow, her fourth husband; at press time, her Arizona trial in the attempted murder of her niece's ex-husband was set for early June.
Chad Daybell, whose trial was moved to Ada County, Idaho, and took place in 2024, was convicted of murder and conspiracy for the deaths of the children and his first wife. He was sentenced to death; an appeal is pending.
Their cases took several years to get to trial, and the prosecutions ended up as a joint effort between Fremont and Madison counties. Vallow Daybell's children lived in Madison County, but their remains were found on Daybell's property in Fremont County. Blake and Madison County Prosecutor Rob Wood were the lead prosecutors.
"I thought the media attention would die down after the initial interest, but that wasn't what happened," Blake says. "The cases had a lot of twists and turns, and sometimes it was stranger than fiction. I believe that the juries ended up with the right outcomes and hope that the [victims' families] can get some healing from that."
Blake admits she struggled a bit preparing the case against Vallow Daybell for killing her children. She found out she was pregnant during the Daybell and Vallow Daybell grand jury proceedings, then gave birth and was up nights with her son during trial preparations.
"There were definitely times as a new mom holding her kid where I thought, 'How could a mother do this? How could she let this happen to her children?'" Blake says. "It wasn't fair to bring those thoughts into the courtroom, so I tried to separate out those emotions as well as I could."
Criminal law has always fascinated Blake, who grew up reading true-crime books and police procedural mysteries. After graduating as valedictorian in high school, she went to Idaho State University, where she kept switching her major between psychology and political science. Blake got a degree in political science and, later, a degree in psychology from the University of Idaho.
"I always was interested in understanding why people tip to the point where they commit crimes," she says.
After graduating from law school in 2007, Blake moved around between Idaho, Wyoming and Utah, working as both a public defender and a prosecutor. She dabbled in other areas of the law, but "crime" was her true passion, and she kept returning to it. Before running for office in Fremont County, she worked as the Teton County, Idaho, chief deputy prosecutor and in the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office.
Blake hadn't planned on returning to Fremont County, but she says her mom kept encouraging her to come back. When she took office, she immediately jumped into heading a small staff with a busy caseload. "I don't know how I juggled my time, but I think I just ended up in a zone where I knew I had to make it work, so I made it work," Blake says.
Her father passed away during Vallow Daybell's murder trial. She continued prosecuting the case.
"People ask me, 'How did you keep going?'" Blake says. "I credit my parents and their work ethic. My father would tell me, 'You don't get to quit a sport midseason just because you don't like it. You made a commitment; you have to see it through.'"