Lori Daybell, the mom convicted of murdering two of her youngsters in a so-called doomsday plot, delivered her closing argument Monday throughout her latest trial in Arizona, the place she is charged with conspiring along with her brother to kill her fourth husband.
Dubbed the “doomsday mother,” Daybell has maintained that her brother shot her then-husband of 13 years, Charles Vallow, in self-defense in her house in Chandler, Arizona, in July 2019. Her brother, Alex Cox, died from pure causes months after the capturing.
Prosecutors, in the meantime, stated the capturing was a ploy for Daybell to do away with her estranged husband in order that she might get his $1 million life insurance coverage coverage and be along with her present husband, Chad Daybell, whom she married 4 months after the capturing. Prosecutors additional stated she invoked their non secular beliefs as justification for the homicide and gave her brother “non secular authority” to kill Vallow as a result of they believed he was possessed by an evil spirit they known as “Ned.”
Lori Daybell delivers her closing argument throughout her homicide conspiracy trial in Phoenix, April 21, 2025.
Pool by way of ABC Information
Lori Daybell, 51, represented herself within the Phoenix trial. She has pleaded not responsible to conspiracy to commit first-degree homicide.
Throughout her almost 20-minute closing argument, she instructed jurors the capturing was not a premeditated homicide however a “tragic household occasion.”
“This occasion was not deliberate or anticipated. It was stunning,” she stated.
She argued that officers uncared for to conduct an intensive investigation, although she additionally stated the Chandler Police Division “did deal with this occasion identical to it was: self-defense.”
“That is an try by the state to attempt to retrofit against the law that does not exist,” she stated.
Daybell additionally urged the jurors to look at her whole police interview carried out after the capturing, a part of which was proven throughout the trial.
The decide sustained a number of objections throughout her closing argument after she referred to testimony that had not been entered into proof throughout the trial.
Throughout her almost two-hour closing argument on Monday, Maricopa County Deputy Prosecuting Lawyer Treena Kay stated the proof on the scene reveals that Vallow was not shot in self-defense, however was “executed” and the scene “staged.”
She started by recounting textual content messages despatched from Lori Daybell to her husband, Chad, seven days after Vallow was killed, discussing her now-deceased husband’s life insurance coverage coverage. Kay stated that, upon studying she was now not the beneficiary of the plan, the defendant messaged Chad that “Ned” most likely modified it “earlier than we removed him.”
“Her phrases inform us that she was concerned on this killing, her actions and her phrases of texting Chad Daybell inform us the motives behind this homicide — Chad and cash,” Kay instructed jurors.
The prosecutor additionally revisited witness testimony that she stated spoke to what she referred to as Lori Daybell and Alex Cox’s “twisted non secular beliefs” and a textual content message the defendant despatched her brother days earlier than the lethal capturing that talked about Nephi, a prophet within the Ebook of Mormon who God commanded to kill Laban.
“Lori Vallow needed the million {dollars}, and he or she needed Chad Daybell, and he or she and Alex used that twisted non secular beliefs they’d in order that they may kill the evil, possessed Charles and ‘be like Nephi,'” Kay stated.
Maricopa County Deputy Prosecuting Lawyer Treena Kay delivers her closing argument in Phoenix, April 21, 2025.
Pool by way of ABC Information
Kay stated Alex Cox confirmed up at his sister’s house with a loaded gun, “prepared for his mission,” and shot Vallow twice. She argued that the proof reveals the second shot was fired whereas Vallow was mendacity on the bottom.
“That’s premeditated first-degree homicide, it doesn’t matter what you consider earlier than that,” Kay stated.
Daybell countered in her closing that Nephi “signifies sturdy religion, perseverance and braveness.”
“The state’s try to misconstrue the optimistic textual content message a couple of great non secular determine, Nephi, and attempt to flip it into an order to kill somebody is absurd,” she stated.
Kay suggested jurors that even for those who do not hear somebody explicitly discuss conspiring, “a conspiracy could also be inferred from circumstances displaying a typical prison goal.”
On this case, the conduct inferred a “conspiracy of Alex coming over along with his gun to shoot and kill Charles,” she stated.
The jury is now deliberating the decision.
Over two weeks, the state referred to as greater than a dozen witnesses, together with Daybell’s different brother, Adam Cox, who testified that he had “little question” his two siblings conspired to kill Vallow upon studying that his brother had fatally shot him.
Daybell didn’t name any witnesses within the trial and didn’t take the stand in her personal protection.
In her cross-examination, Daybell tried to query the thoroughness of the police investigation into the capturing. She requested a number of witnesses, together with her brother Adam Cox, in the event that they personally noticed her conspire along with her brother Alex Cox to homicide her husband, to which they responded no.
All through the trial, the decide usually sustained frequent objections from the prosecution over Daybell’s questions for testifying, rumour, relevance and hypothesis.
After the state rested its case on April 16, Daybell introduced a movement for acquittal as a result of inadequate proof. The decide denied it, saying the court docket finds there’s enough proof {that a} affordable juror might discover her responsible.
Lori Vallow Daybell sits throughout her sentencing listening to on the Fremont County Courthouse in St. Anthony, Idaho, July 31, 2023.
Tony Blakeslee EastIdahoNews.com/Pool by way of AP
Each Lori and Chad Daybell had been discovered responsible of first-degree homicide for the deaths of her youngsters, Joshua “J.J.” Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 16, who went lacking months after Vallow was killed. In two separate trials in 2023 and 2024, prosecutors argued that the couple thought the youngsters had been possessed zombies and murdered them in order that they might be collectively. The kids’s stays had been discovered on an Idaho property belonging to Daybell in June 2020 following a monthslong search.
Lori Daybell is presently serving life in jail with out parole for the murders of her two youngsters. She has denied killing them.
Chad Daybell was sentenced to demise after being convicted of murdering the 2 youngsters, in addition to his first spouse, Tamara Daybell, and now awaits execution on Idaho’s demise row.
