Lori Vallow Daybell, already serving life for the murders of her two children, has now been found guilty of conspiring to kill her fourth husband, Charles Vallow. According to the Associated Press, the verdict came down on Tuesday, April 22, after just three hours of deliberation over two days.
This latest conviction out of Arizona adds another dark chapter to Lori’s already infamous story. Back in 2019, Charles Vallow was shot and killed at Lori’s home. At the time, Lori claimed it was self-defense, but prosecutors told a very different story in court.
Representing herself, Lori said that her brother, Alex Cox, was the one who pulled the trigger during a heated confrontation. According to her version, Charles had shown up to pick up their son, J.J., and started yelling after she wouldn’t give him his phone. She claimed their daughter, Tylee, tried to intervene with a baseball bat, and things quickly escalated into chaos. Lori said Cox stepped in to protect them and fatally shot Charles.
But the jury wasn’t buying it.
Prosecutors argued that Lori had every reason to want Charles out of the picture. He had filed for divorce and allegedly changed his life insurance policy, which would have shut Lori out of any payout. They said she plotted the killing to cash in and clear the way to marry Chad Daybell — her fifth husband, who just so happens to write books about religious doomsday scenarios.
“Charles was on the ground when Alex Cox fired that second shot,” prosecutor Treena Kay told the jury. She emphasized that the evidence painted a scene that was anything but self-defense. “The injuries to Charles, the location of the bullet strikes, the trajectory of the injuries, both in Charles and in the house: All show this was not self-defense. This was a staged murder scene.”
Cox, who was never charged in the killing, died later that year in 2019.
This case is just one piece of a disturbing puzzle. Lori and Chad were previously convicted in Idaho for the murders of J.J., 7, and Tylee, 16. The children vanished in September 2019, and their remains were found buried on Chad’s property in 2020. Chad’s first wife, Tammy Daybell, also turned up dead that same year, later ruled a homicide by asphyxiation. Chad has since been sentenced to death for her murder and the murders of Lori’s children.
Lori’s conviction in Arizona doesn’t change her sentence in Idaho, but it closes another grim chapter in a case that has horrified the nation.
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