Lori Vallow Tried to Have Him Murdered. Now, the Only Family Member Who Survived Is Breaking His Silence

Brandon Boudreaux, the ex-husband of Lori Vallow’s niece Melani Pawlowski, is speaking out about the doomsday cult leader on NBC’s “Dateline” this week

NEED TO KNOW

• Brandon Boudreaux will appear on a new episode of NBC’s Dateline airing Friday, Oct. 23, at 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT
• Lori Vallow attempted to have Boudreaux murdered in October 2019 but the bullet missed his head by inches
• Boudreaux, who was in a custody battle with Vallow’s niece at the time, says he reconnected with Charles Vallow weeks before his estranged wife had him killed

Lori Vallow, her new husband Chad Daybell and her brother Alex Cox were responsible for the murders of four individuals.

Together, the three of them killed Vallow’s daughter Tylee Ryan and adopted son J.J., her estranged husband Charles Vallow and Daybell’s wife Tammy.

There was an additional person the group tried to kill, as well, but he survived: Brandon Boudreaux.

Boudreaux was married to Vallow’s niece Melani Pawlowski at the time, and while in the midst of a contentious custody battle, he found himself being shot at by a man as he drove home from work on Oct. 2, 2019.

The bullet missed his head by inches, but he recognized the car as being one that was owned by Charles, who by that point had been dead for over three months.

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In a new episode of NBC’s Dateline airing Friday, Oct. 23, at 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT, Boudreaux recounts that terrifying moment and reveals how he and Vallow’s estranged husband reconnected just weeks before Charles was shot dead by Cox.

Boudreaux says that unbeknownst to him at the time, Pawlowski had been deleting and blocking messages he was receiving from Charles for months.

By then, Pawlowski had become a loyal follower of the doomsday cult that Vallow and Daybell were leading.

Boudreaux can be seen fighting back tears in a preview for the episode, as he recalls the times Charles reached out and he could not be there.

“I apologized to him. I missed the mark. I wasn’t there enough for him. I could have done more. I could have been better while he was going through this and so I told him and he forgave me and said he loved me and said he understood and we talked through things and he reminded me how he’d been warning me,” Boudreaux says.

Charles also had another warning for Boudreaux, telling the father-of-four that Vallow was going to convince his ex-wife that he was gay.

And she did just that, with a lawyer who represented Pawlowski sending out a press release making that false claim along with many others.

“Brandon Boudreaux has a history of victimizing women, which is probably an extension of his use of extreme and dark pornography,” wrote Garrett Smith, who represented Pawlowski at the time. “Melani confronted Brandon Boudreaux in June of last year with proof of his pornography addiction and homosexual affairs.”

The release continued that Boudreaux “retaliated with threats to attack her and to take her kids away” and that she then “carried through with his threats by lying in his court documents.”

Smith noted that his client “was the stable parent in her children’s lives while Brandon Boudreaux traveled for weeks and was rarely home” before taking aim at his family.

“Brandon Boudreaux has failed to tell investigators that his family has covered up child molestation, drug addiction, kidnapping, assaults, and even killings,” claimed Smith.

“And, according to inside family information, Brandon Boudreaux’s family is involved in organized crime.”

Smith continued: “Brandon Boudreaux has plenty to hide. A closer look would reveal many possible sources who would take a shot at him.”

Boudreaux eventually filed a defamation suit against his ex-wife, Smith and others involved in that release.

That was months before the shooting.

On the day that Boudreaux was shot, investigators discovered that Cox had searched for directions to his house, been in constant contact with Vallow and that Vallow searched online for a report of a shooting in Boudreaux’s town that evening.

Vallow was later arrested and charged for conspiring to murder both Charles and Boudreaux.

On April 22, 2025, she was found guilty of conspiring to murder Charles and less than two months later, on June 12, 2025, she was found guilty of conspiring to murder Boudreaux.

The episode airs Friday at 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT on NBC.