Mother with doomsday religious beliefs convicted of conspiring to kill her estranged husband

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. Vallow Daybell faces up to life in prison without parole when she is expected to be sentenced Monday, July 31, in the murders of her two youngest children and a romantic rival. (AP Photo/Kyle Green, File)

Warning: Disturbing content.

PHOENIX — An Arizona jury has found Lori Vallow Daybell guilty of conspiring to murder her estranged husband, meaning the mother with doomsday religious beliefs faces another life sentence after she was already convicted in Idaho in the killings of her two youngest children and a romantic rival.

Prosecutors said she conspired with her brother, Alex Cox, in the July 2019 shooting death of Charles Vallow at her home in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler.

She was trying to collect money from his life insurance policy, prosecutors said, and planned to marry her then-boyfriend Chad Daybell, an Idaho author who wrote several religious novels about prophecies and the end of the world.

Jurors deliberated for a total of three hours over two days. Vallow Daybell, who isn’t an attorney but chose to defend herself at trial, 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 during the encounter inside the house, Vallow chased her with a bat, and her brother shot him in self-defence after she left the house.

Cox, who also claimed he acted in self-defence, died five months later from what medical examiners said was a blood clot in his lungs.

Vallow’s siblings, Kay Woodcock and Gerry Vallow, told reporters 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.

The trial marked the first of two criminal trials in Arizona for Vallow Daybell. She is scheduled to go on trial again in early June on a charge of conspiring to murder Brandon Boudreaux, the ex-husband of Vallow Daybell’s niece. Boudreaux survived the attempt.

Vallow Daybell will be sentenced in Vallow’s death after her second trial. She is already serving three life sentences in the Idaho case.

Last week at the Arizona trial, 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.

Jacques Billeaud, The Associated Press