Lori Vallow Daybell convicted in Arizona of conspiring to kill her
estranged husband in 2019
[April 23, 2025]
By JACQUES BILLEAUD and RIO YAMAT
PHOENIX (AP) — A woman whose doomsday religious beliefs led her to kill
her two youngest children and engage in a plot to kill a romantic rival
in Idaho was convicted Tuesday in Arizona for conspiring to murder her
estranged husband.
Jurors found Lori Vallow Daybell guilty after deliberating for about
three hours, and she faces another possible life sentence on top of the
three she is already serving in Idaho. She will not be sentenced in
Arizona until after she goes on trial in another alleged murder
conspiracy.
Prosecutors said Vallow Daybell had help from her brother, Alex Cox, in
the July 2019 shooting death of Charles Vallow at her home in the
Phoenix suburb of Chandler. They say she was motivated by an opportunity
to cash in on Vallow's life insurance policy and a marriage to
then-boyfriend Chad Daybell who wrote several religious novels about
prophecies and the end of the world.
Chad Daybell is also serving life sentences for the deaths of Vallow
Daybell's children, 7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow and 16-year-old Tylee
Ryan, and his wife, Tammy. Authorities in Idaho said the case included
bizarre claims by Chad Daybell and Vallow Daybell that the children were
zombies and that Vallow Daybell was a goddess tasked with ushering in an
apocalypse.
Vallow Daybell, who isn’t an attorney but chose to defend herself at
trial in Arizona, sat mostly still as the verdict was read but glanced
occasionally at jurors as they were asked to confirm they found her
guilty on the single charge.
One of the jurors, Victoria Lewis, said outside the courthouse that
Vallow Daybell didn't do herself any favors by choosing to represent
herself.
“Many days she was just smiling and laughing and didn't seem to take
anything very seriously,” Lewis told reporters.
Vallow Daybell told the jury that Vallow chased her with a bat inside
her home, and her brother shot Vallow in self-defense as she left the
house. She told jurors the death was a tragedy, not a crime.
Cox died five months later from what medical examiners said was a blood
clot in his lungs.
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Lori Vallow Daybell stands and listens as the jury's verdict is read
at the Ada County Courthouse in Boise, Idaho on Friday, May 12,
2023. (AP Photo/Kyle Green, File)
Vallow's siblings, Kay Woodcock and Gerry Vallow, told reporters
outside court that they are grateful for the jury's decision.
“We gotcha, and you're not the smartest person in the room,"
Woodcock said when asked if she has a message for Vallow Daybell.
“Everybody's going to forget about you.”
The Associated Press left email messages seeking comment Tuesday
from the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted the
case, and the lawyers who served as legal advisers to Vallow Daybell
during the trial.
Last week Adam Cox, another brother of Vallow Daybell, testified on
behalf of the prosecution, telling jurors that he had no doubt that
his siblings were behind Vallow’s death.
Adam Cox said the killing happened just before he and Vallow were
planning an intervention to bring his sister back into the
mainstream of their shared faith in the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints. He testified that before Vallow’s death, his
sister had told people her husband was no longer living and that a
zombie was living inside his body.
Four months before he died, Vallow filed for divorce from Vallow
Daybell, saying she had become infatuated with near-death
experiences and had claimed to have lived numerous lives on other
planets. He alleged she threatened to ruin him financially and kill
him. He sought a voluntary mental health evaluation of his wife.
Vallow Daybell is scheduled to go on trial again in early June,
accused in a plot to kill Brandon Boudreaux, the ex-husband of
Vallow Daybell’s niece. Boudreaux survived.
___
Yamat contributed from Las Vegas.
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