Lori Daybell, the mom convicted of murdering two of her kids in a so-called doomsday plot, has now been discovered responsible of conspiring together with her brother to kill her fourth husband.
The jury in Maricopa County, Arizona, was handed the case Monday afternoon earlier than reaching a verdict Tuesday afternoon.
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 through AP
Lori Daybell, 51, represented herself within the Phoenix trial. She didn’t take the stand or name any witnesses.
Dubbed the “doomsday mother,” Lori Daybell has maintained that her brother shot her then-husband of 13 years, Charles Vallow, in self-defense in her residence in Chandler, Arizona, in July 2019. Her brother, Alex Cox, died from pure causes months after the capturing.
She had pleaded not responsible to conspiracy to commit first-degree homicide.
Prosecutors, in the meantime, stated the capturing was a ploy for Daybell to do away with her estranged husband so she may get his $1 million life insurance coverage coverage and be together with her present husband, Chad Daybell, whom she married 4 months after the capturing.
Prosecutors additional stated she invoked their “twisted” 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.”
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.
In her closing argument, Maricopa County Deputy Prosecuting Legal professional Treena Kay stated the proof on the scene confirmed that Vallow was not shot in self-defense, however was “executed” and the scene “staged.” She recounted 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” in all probability modified it “earlier than we removed him.”
Lori Daybell cross-examines her brother, Adam Cox, throughout her homicide trial in Phoenix, Arizona, April 10, 2025.
Pool through ABC Information
The prosecutor additionally mentioned a textual content message the defendant despatched Alex Cox days earlier than the lethal capturing during which she stated they might “be like 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 that they had in order that they might kill the evil, possessed Charles and ‘be like Nephi,'” Kay stated.
Three jurors who spoke to reporters following the decision stated the textual content message proof within the case had stood out whereas they had been deliberating. The jurors stated that they had no data of Lori Daybell’s prior convictions, which weren’t mentioned in the course of the Phoenix trial.
Members of Vallow’s household expressed reduction on the responsible verdict.
“I am prepared to maneuver on,” Vallow’s sister, Kay Woodcock, instructed reporters exterior the courthouse.
“This was thrust upon us, and our lives simply went into, like a twister, for a very long time,” she stated.
Following the responsible verdict, Lori Daybell agreed to a number of aggravating elements within the case, as a substitute of getting a jury make a discovering on them. Amongst them, she agreed that this was a harmful offense and that it concerned the presence of an confederate. When requested if she agreed that on account of her conduct, the sufferer or the sufferer’s household “suffered emotional or monetary hurt,” she stated, “Completely.”
She might be sentenced following one other upcoming trial in Maricopa County, the place she is additional accused of scheming together with her brother Alex Cox to kill Brandon Boudreaux, the ex-husband of her niece.
Three months after the capturing of Vallow, Boudreaux referred to as 911 to report that somebody driving by in a Jeep shot at his automobile exterior his residence in Gilbert, Arizona.
She has pleaded not responsible in that case.
Each Lori and Chad Daybell had been discovered responsible of first-degree homicide for the deaths of her kids, Joshua “J.J.” Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 16, who went lacking months after Charles Vallow was killed. In separate trials in 2023 and 2024, prosecutors argued the couple thought the kids had been possessed zombies and murdered them in order that they could possibly be collectively. The youngsters’s stays had been discovered on an Idaho property belonging to Daybell in June 2020 following a monthslong search.
Lori Daybell is at present serving life in jail with out parole for the murders of her two kids. She has denied killing them.
Chad Daybell was sentenced to loss of life after being convicted of murdering the 2 kids, in addition to his first spouse, Tamara Daybell, and now awaits execution on Idaho’s loss of life row.
