Lori Vallow Daybell — often dubbed the “Doomsday mum” — has been found guilty in Arizona of conspiring to murder her estranged husband, Charles Vallow. You might recognise the name from Netflix’s Sins Of Our Mother docuseries.
The jury verdict, reached after around three hours of deliberation, adds another life sentence to the three she’s already serving for a string of killings tied to her apocalyptic beliefs.
Vallow Daybell, 51, represented herself at trial, choosing not to testify or call any witnesses. Prosecutors argued she plotted with her brother, Alex Cox, to kill Charles Vallow at her Chandler home in July 2019. Their motive, according to the prosecution, was to claim Charles’ $1 million life insurance policy and clear the way for Vallow Daybell to marry Chad Daybell, an author of religious doomsday novels.
Prosecutors said Vallow Daybell and Cox justified the killing through their “twisted” religious beliefs, claiming Charles was possessed by an evil spirit they called “Ned”.
They argued that Vallow Daybell gave Cox “religious authority” to kill Charles, and pointed to text messages sent just days after the shooting, in which she told Chad that “Ned” probably changed [the policy] “before we got rid of him”, per ABC News.
Vallow Daybell maintained her brother shot Charles in self-defence, insisting the event was a “tragic family event” and not a calculated murder.
“This occurrence was neither planned nor anticipated. It was shocking,” she told the jury during her closing statement, arguing the state was “trying to fabricate a crime that does not exist”.
She also claimed that law enforcement treated the incident as self-defence at the time.
But the jury was not convinced. Maricopa County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Treena Kay argued that the evidence showed Charles Vallow was “executed” and the scene was “staged”.
“Her words tell us that she was involved in this killing, her actions and her words of texting Chad Daybell tell us the motives behind this murder — Chad and money,” she told jurors.
Speaking outside the courthouse following the verdict, Charles Vallow’s family described the news as a relief. His sister, Kay Woodcock, said, “It’s still difficult, but it’s okay. I’m ready to move on, it’s time. We lost some dear family. We lost a lot. But we have gained family as well,” per Newsweek.
Woodcock also had a message to Lori: “We got you, and you’re not the smartest person in the room…You can just hide away and everybody’s going to forget about you. We’ll be on our way through our life and she’ll be rotting in prison, where she deserves to be.”
Adam Cox, Lori’s other brother, testified for the prosecution and said he had “no doubt” that his siblings conspired to kill Charles.
He explained that Charles’ murder happened just before he and Charles were planning an intervention to help Lori return to their shared faith. Adam told the court that Lori had claimed her husband was already dead and a “zombie” was living in his body.
The latest conviction in Arizona follows a series of trials for Vallow Daybell since she was arrested in 2020. She is already serving life without parole for the murders of her two youngest children, Joshua “JJ” Vallow and Tylee Ryan, and for conspiring to kill Chad Daybell’s previous wife, Tammy Daybell. The children’s remains were found in June 2020 on Chad Daybell’s Idaho property, months after they were reported missing.
At her Idaho sentencing in 2023, Judge Steven Boyce told Vallow Daybell, “You justified all of this by going down a bizarre religious rabbit hole, and clearly you are still down there,” per CBS News.
Vallow Daybell will be sentenced in Arizona after another upcoming trial, where she’s accused of conspiring to murder Brandon Boudreaux, her niece’s ex-husband. She has pleaded not guilty in that case and faces another possible life sentence if convicted.
Lead image: AP News
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