Lori Vallow Daybell receives new life sentences in conspiracy cases, ending "doomsday mom's" legal saga

CBS News

2 days ago

Lori Vallow Daybell was sentenced to life in prison Friday on two murder conspiracy convictions in Arizona, marking an end to a winding legal saga for the mother with doomsday religious beliefs who claimed people in her life had been possessed by evil spirits.
Vallow Daybell, already serving life sentences in Idaho in the killings of her two youngest children and a romantic rival, was convicted at separate trials this spring in Phoenix of conspiring to murder her estranged husband, Charles Vallow, and her niece's ex-husband, Brandon Boudreaux. She represented herself, despite not being a lawyer.
Authorities say she carried out the plots with her brother Alex Cox, who acknowledged killing Vallow in July 2019 and was identified by prosecutors as the person who fired at Boudreaux months later but missed.
Prosecutors say Vallow Daybell conspired to kill her husband so she could collect on his $1 million life insurance policy and marry her then-boyfriend Chad Daybell, an Idaho author of several religious novels about prophecies and the end of the world. They say Boudreaux suspected Vallow Daybell and Cox were responsible for Vallow's death and went into hiding with his children because he feared Cox would kill him.
Nearly two years ago, Vallow Daybell was sentenced to life in an Idaho prison for killing her children, 7-year-old Joshua "JJ" Vallow and 16-year-old Tylee Ryan, and conspiring to murder Daybell's wife, Tammy. The children went missing for several months before their bodies were found buried in rural Idaho on Daybell's property. Daybell was sentenced to death for the gruesome murders of his wife, Tylee and JJ.
At her Arizona trials, Vallow Daybell argued her brother acted in self-defense when killing Vallow. She also said no evidence showed she conspired with Cox to kill Boudreaux.
Vallow Daybell appeared in court Friday in an orange jail uniform as family members called her "evil," "greedy" and a "monster" while describing their grief. The victims' family members sat in the jury box, passing around tissues. Colby Ryan, Vallow Daybell's only surviving child who testified by remote link, described how he "had to fight to stay alive after the pain" of losing his father and siblings.
Ryan zeroed in on his mother, who has claimed the Arizona cases were family tragedies that shouldn't have ended up in court. "I believe that Lori Vallow herself is the family tragedy," Ryan said.
Charles Vallow filed for divorce four months before he died. He said Vallow Daybell became infatuated with near-death experiences and claimed to have lived numerous lives on other planets. He told police she threatened to kill him and he was concerned for his children.
Vallow was shot when he went to pick up his son at Vallow Daybell's home outside Phoenix, police said. Vallow Daybell's daughter, Tylee, told police the sound of yelling woke her up, and she confronted Vallow with a baseball bat that he managed to take from her. Cox told police he shot Vallow after he refused to drop the bat and came after him.
Cox died five months later from a blood clot in his lungs. His self-defense claim was later called into question, with investigators saying Cox and Vallow Daybell waited more than 40 minutes before calling 911.
Just before his death, Vallow and his wife's other brother, Adam Cox, planned an intervention to try to bring Vallow Daybell back into the mainstream of their shared faith in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Adam Cox, a witness for the prosecution, testified that his sister told people Vallow was no longer living and that a zombie was inside her estranged husband's body.
Gerry Vallow, Charles Vallow's brother, told the judge Friday that Vallow Daybell cheated on his brother with Chad Daybell while she was plotting to kill Charles Vallow. She isn't misunderstood, Gerry Vallow said.
"She wrote her own make-believe story, and she wrote it in blood," he said. "She tried to kill Brandon when he started looking like the next available dollar sign."
Almost three months after Vallow died, someone fired a shot at Boudreaux from an open window of a Jeep as he was driving up to his home in Gilbert, another Phoenix suburb. It narrowly missed Boudreaux, the ex-husband of Vallow Daybell's niece, Melani Pawlowski.
Boudreaux described in court Friday how Vallow Daybell betrayed him and how the attempt on his life caused him heartache and worry about his family's safety. Boudreaux's sisters told the judge that their brother went into hiding with his children.
"No one deserves to live a life of fear and trauma," Boudreaux said tearfully. He said he has forgiven Vallow Daybell so he can be a better person but that he wouldn't feel safe if she has freedom.
Boudreaux has said Pawlowski aspired to be like her aunt. The two started attending religious meetings together in 2018. Soon after, Pawlowski said they should stockpile food for the end of the world.
Prosecutors tied the Jeep to Vallow Daybell and said she loaned it to Alex Cox. The two bought a burner phone used to carry out the attack and tried to concoct an alibi for Cox to make it seem like he was in Idaho at the time, prosecutors said.