Opening statements started Monday within the Arizona trial of “Doomsday mom” Lori Vallow Daybell, the mom who was sentenced to life in jail in Idaho for killing her kids in 2019.
In Arizona, Vallow Daybell has been indicted of conspiracy to commit homicide within the dying of her fourth husband, Charles Vallow.
She has pleaded not responsible to the cost and is representing herself on the trial.
“I’m fighting for my life here,” Vallow Daybell instructed CBS affiliate AZFamily’s True Crime Arizona correspondent Briana Whitney in a jailhouse interview forward of opening statements.
Jury choice within the Arizona case started on Monday, March 31. About 200 potential jurors have been screened, AZFamily reported, however many have been dominated out by Vallow Daybell and prosecutors as a result of they knew in regards to the case. Sixteen jurors, together with 4 alternates, have been chosen. The jury is made up of 13 males and three ladies, AZFamily reported.
AZFamily has been permitted by the decide to stream the trial on a 30-minute delay. The trial is predicted to final till mid-Could on the newest.
What did Lori Vallow Daybell do?
Lori Vallow Daybell was sentenced to life in jail with out parole within the killings of her kids, Tylee Ryan and Joshua Jaxon “JJ” Vallow. Tylee was Vallow Daybell’s little one from a earlier relationship. She and Charles Vallow adopted JJ in 2012.
In 2018, Vallow Daybell met doomsday fiction writer Chad Daybell. A yr later, she separated from Vallow and commenced a relationship with Daybell.
The couple held apocalyptic non secular beliefs that prosecutors claimed have been used to justify the killings of Tylee, JJ and Daybell’s first spouse, Tammy Daybell.
7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow and 16-year-old Tylee Ryan.
Kauai Police
Tylee and JJ disappeared inside two weeks of one another in September 2019. In October 2019, Tammy Daybell was discovered lifeless in her mattress. A coroner mentioned her dying initially gave the impression to be as a result of pure causes, however an post-mortem wasn’t performed earlier than her physique was buried. Two weeks later, in November 2019, Daybell and Vallow Daybell have been married in Hawaii.
The stays of Tammy Daybell have been exhumed in December 2019, an post-mortem was carried out and her reason for dying was decided to be asphyxiation. In February 2020, Vallow Daybell was arrested in Hawaii for ignoring a police order to supply her kids, who had been reported lacking by their grandparents. A number of months later, in June 2020, the our bodies of Tylee and JJ have been discovered on a property owned by Chad Daybell.
Daybell and Vallow Daybell have been every charged within the deaths of Tammy Daybell, Tylee and JJ. In separate trials, they have been every discovered responsible of homicide and conspiracy to commit homicide within the kids’s deaths. Vallow Daybell was additionally convicted of conspiracy to commit homicide in Tammy Daybell’s dying and of theft prices associated to monetary funds despatched to her kids.
Daybell was discovered responsible of homicide in Tammy Daybell’s dying, in addition to a number of different associated prices. He has been sentenced to dying.
Lori Vallow Daybell glances on the digicam throughout her listening to in Rexburg, Idaho, on March 6, 2020.
John Roark/The Idaho Publish-Register by way of AP
What was Lori Vallow Daybell’s relationship with Charles Vallow?
Lori Vallow Daybell and Charles Vallow have been married from 2006 to 2019.
In early 2019, Vallow grew to become very anxious about his spouse. He went to the police along with his issues, telling them that Vallow Daybell believed she was a “god” who was making ready for the top of days.
“She threatened me, murder me, kill me,” he instructed police in a dialog recorded on video, in accordance with “48 Hours.”
Vallow filed for divorce in February 2019. Within the submitting, he mentioned that Vallow Daybell had threatened to homicide him. He additionally expressed fears for JJ and Tylee’s security.
Lori and Charles Vallow married in 2006.
Kay Woodcock
How did Charles Vallow die?
Charles Vallow was shot and killed by Lori Vallow Daybell’s brother, Alexander Lamar Cox, on July 11, 2019.
Vallow had gone to the house the place Vallow Daybell was residing with Cox and the 2 kids after their separation to select up JJ. The house was in Chandler, a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona.
In police video, Tylee mentioned that she heard Vallow and Cox arguing.
“Honestly, it feels, it feels like 2 seconds, and 40 minutes at the same time. … I just kind of heard yelling over everything. I don’t know, I kind of just do that when everything is, like, really loud, I kind of just tune what people are saying out,” she instructed detectives.
Cox instructed police that he had killed Vallow in self-defense. He was not arrested.
Cox’s spouse, Zulema Pastenes, testified that Daybell and Vallow Daybell had satisfied him that his divine mission was to guard his sister. Pastenes mentioned that Cox instructed her he feared the pair would make him their “fall guy.” That dialog, Pastenes mentioned, occurred a day earlier than Cox’s sudden dying in December 2019. Medical experts mentioned he died of a pulmonary blood clot.
Lori Vallow’s murdered daughter seen in newly-released proof video
02:50
What to know in regards to the newest prices
Lori Vallow Daybell has been charged with conspiring with Alex Cox to kill Charles Vallow. The trial is happening in Phoenix, Arizona, the place Vallow died.
April Raymond instructed “48 Hours” that Vallow Daybell, her former pal, instructed her she believed Vallow was already lifeless and had a demon residing inside him. She would later make related feedback about her kids.
In December 2024, a decide dominated that Vallow Daybell was mentally match to face trial. She’s going to be capable to put on civilian garments and won’t be shackled, however must put on a shock vest, AZFamily mentioned.
Complicating the trial is Vallow Daybell’s resolution to symbolize herself. Vallow Daybell mentioned that she has studied case legislation throughout her time in jail. She additionally mentioned she has expertise in courtroom that can assist her symbolize herself.
“My intention is to say the things that I would say for myself,” Vallow Daybell mentioned within the jailhouse interview with Whitney.
She mentioned her attorneys in Idaho didn’t all the time say what she wished them to and “sometimes you just have to be able to do it for yourself.”
Vallow Daybell mentioned she hadn’t determined but if she would testify on the trial.
“We’re going to see how it goes,” she mentioned.
The logistics of making ready for the case have been a problem, Vallow Daybell mentioned. At a listening to on March 18 she mentioned it was tough for her to speak together with her authorized staff whereas in jail.
“Where I am at the jail, the communication is very difficult for me to get ahold of my investigator, get ahold of my paralegal. I’m 23 hours a day locked down. If I don’t have Wi-Fi, I don’t have a phone, if I don’t have battery, I don’t have a phone,” she mentioned.
If discovered responsible, Vallow faces life in jail with the potential for parole after 25 years. She is already serving a number of life sentences with no risk of parole after the convictions in Idaho.
This trial shouldn’t be the final of her authorized troubles. Vallow Daybell additionally faces a cost of conspiracy to commit homicide for the tried taking pictures of her niece’s ex-husband, Brandon Boudreaux. Boudreaux was shot at in 2019 whereas driving close to his house however was unharmed. Prosecutors say Cox carried out the taking pictures however missed his goal. Vallow Daybell has pleaded not responsible to the cost.
Lori Vallow, in a reserving photograph from Maricopa County, Arizona.
Maricopa County Sheriff’s Workplace
Lori Vallow Daybell’s “Dateline” interview
In a jailhouse interview with NBC’s “Dateline,” which aired in March, Vallow Daybell made a number of baseless claims. She was typically combative towards correspondent Keith Morrison as she claimed to be harmless of all prices.
She mentioned she “was not there” when JJ and Tylee have been killed and was not concerned in Tammy Daybell’s dying. She tried in charge JJ’s dying on Tylee, Morrison mentioned, however investigators have mentioned Tylee died earlier than JJ.
“She came in and she had her own agenda,” Morrison mentioned of Vallow Daybell forward of the airing of the “Dateline” episode. “She wanted to be the aggressor.”
In the course of the interview, Vallow Daybell additionally briefly mentioned how she would function her personal legal professional within the Charles Vallow case. She known as the method “great” however a “difficult thing to do.”
The Related Press
contributed to this report.
Extra from CBS Information
