Phoenix (AP) – Arizona jury found Lori Vallow Daybell guilty of conspiracy to murder her estranged husband, meaning the apocalyptic religious mother faces a life sentence after she was convicted of her two youngest children and a romantic rival and a romantic rival.
Prosecutors said she shot and killed Charles Vallow’s death at her home in Chandler, a suburb of Phoenix in July 2019.
Prosecutors said she was trying to raise funds from his life insurance policy and planned to marry her then-boyfriend, Chad Daybell, an Idaho writer who wrote several religious novels about prophecy and the end of the world.
The jurors considered it for a total of three hours in two days. Vallow Daybell, who is not a lawyer, but chooses to defend himself at trial, sits mostly because the verdict is read, but occasionally glances at the jurors because they are asked to confirm that they feel guilty about a single charge.
One of the jurors, Victoria Lewis, said outside the court that Vallow Daybell’s choice to represent himself did not help him.
“She’s just smiling and smiling for a lot of days, and doesn’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-defense after leaving the house.
Cox also claimed to act in self-defense and died five months later from a blood clot in the lungs that medical examiners said.
Vallow’s siblings Kay Woodcock and Gerry Vallow told reporters they thanked the jury for their decision.
“We’re in a dilemma, you’re not the smartest person in the room,” Woodcock said when asked if there was any news about Vallow Daybell. “Everyone will forget you.”
The Associated Press left the email Tuesday after an email seeking comment from the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, which sued the case, as attorney who served as legal counsel during the trial.
The trial marks the first of two criminal trials in Arizona’s passdaybell. She plans to be tried again in early June, in charge of the murder of Vallow Daybell’s ex-husband, Brandon Boudreaux. Boudreaux survived.
Vallow Daybell will be sentenced in Vallow’s death after the second trial. She has served three sentences in the Idaho case.
Last week, Vallow Daybell’s other brother, Adam Cox, testified on behalf of the prosecution at the trial in Arizona, telling jurors that he had no doubt that his siblings were behind Vallow’s death.
Adam Cox said the killing took place before he and Vallow planned to intervene, bringing his sister back to 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 told people that her husband was no longer alive and that the zombies lived inside him.
Vallow filed for divorce with Vallow Daybell four months before his death, saying she was fascinated by her near-death experience and claimed she had lived countless lives on other planets. He claims she threatens to destroy him financially and kill him. He seeks a voluntary mental health assessment of his wife.
