'Doomsday mom' Lori Daybell found guilty in murder conspiracy trial
Lori Daybell, the mother convicted of murdering two of her children in a so-called doomsday plot, has now been found guilty of conspiring with her brother to kill her fourth husband.
The jury in Maricopa County, Arizona, was handed the case Monday afternoon before reaching a verdict Tuesday afternoon.
Lori Daybell, 51, represented herself in the Phoenix trial. She did not take the stand or call any witnesses.
Dubbed the "doomsday mom," Lori Daybell has maintained that her brother shot her then-husband of 13 years, Charles Vallow, in self-defense in her home in Chandler, Arizona, in July 2019. Her brother, Alex Cox, died from natural causes months after the shooting.
She had pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, said the shooting was a ploy for Daybell to get rid of her estranged husband so she could get his $1 million life insurance policy and be with her current husband, Chad Daybell, whom she married four months after the shooting.
Prosecutors further said she invoked their "twisted" religious beliefs as justification for the murder and gave her brother "religious authority" to kill Vallow because they believed he was possessed by an evil spirit they referred to as "Ned."
Over two weeks, the state called more than a dozen witnesses, including Daybell's other brother, Adam Cox, who testified that he had "no doubt" his two siblings conspired to kill Vallow upon learning that his brother had fatally shot him.
In her closing argument, Maricopa County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Treena Kay said the evidence at the scene showed that Vallow was not shot in self-defense, but was "executed" and the scene "staged." She recounted text messages sent from Lori Daybell to her husband, Chad, seven days after Vallow was killed, discussing her now-deceased husband's life insurance policy. Kay said that, upon learning she was no longer the beneficiary of the plan, the defendant messaged Chad that "Ned" probably changed it "before we got rid of him."
The prosecutor also discussed a text message the defendant sent Alex Cox days before the deadly shooting in which she said they could "be like Nephi," a prophet in the Book of Mormon who God commanded to kill Laban.
"Lori Vallow wanted the million dollars, and she wanted Chad Daybell, and she and Alex used that twisted religious beliefs they had so that they could kill the evil, possessed Charles and 'be like Nephi,'" Kay said.
Three jurors who spoke to reporters following the verdict said the text message evidence in the case had stood out while they were deliberating. The jurors said they had no knowledge of Lori Daybell's prior convictions, which were not discussed during the Phoenix trial.
Members of Vallow's family expressed relief at the guilty verdict.
"I'm ready to move on," Vallow's sister, Kay Woodcock, told reporters outside the courthouse.
"This was thrust upon us, and our lives just went into, like a tornado, for a long time," she said.
Following the guilty verdict, Lori Daybell agreed to several aggravating factors in the case, instead of having a jury make a finding on them. Among them, she agreed that this was a dangerous offense and that it involved the presence of an accomplice. When asked if she agreed that as a result of her conduct, the victim or the victim's family "suffered emotional or financial harm," she said, "Absolutely."
She will be sentenced following another upcoming trial in Maricopa County, where she is further accused of scheming with her brother Alex Cox to kill Brandon Boudreaux, the ex-husband of her niece.
Three months after the shooting of Vallow, Boudreaux called 911 to report that someone driving by in a Jeep shot at his vehicle outside his home in Gilbert, Arizona.
She has pleaded not guilty in that case.
Both Lori and Chad Daybell were found guilty of first-degree murder for the deaths of her children, Joshua "J.J." Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 16, who went missing months after Charles Vallow was killed. In separate trials in 2023 and 2024, prosecutors argued the couple thought the children were possessed zombies and murdered them so that they could be together. The children's remains were found on an Idaho property belonging to Daybell in June 2020 following a monthslong search.
Lori Daybell is currently serving life in prison without parole for the murders of her two children. She has denied killing them.
Chad Daybell was sentenced to death after being convicted of murdering the two children, as well as his first wife, Tamara Daybell, and now awaits execution on Idaho's death row.
