PHOENIX — Closing arguments are scheduled Monday afternoon at the Arizona trial for Lori Vallow Daybell, the Idaho woman with doomsday religious beliefs who’s charged with conspiring to murder her estranged husband in suburban Phoenix. Vallow Daybell, who isn’t a lawyer but has chosen to defend herself, told the judge late last week that she plans to rest her case without calling witnesses or putting on evidence. If she follows through on those plans, closing arguments will be held Monday in the Phoenix courtroom where jurors heard testimony from prosecution witnesses for seven days. Prosecutors say she conspired with her brother, Alex Cox, to kill Charles Vallow at her home in Chandler in July 2019 so she could collect money from his life insurance policy and marry her then-boyfriend Chad Daybell, an Idaho author who wrote several religious novels about prophecies and the end of the world.
Cox, who claimed he acted in self-defense when he fatally shot Vallow, died five months later from what medical examiners said was a blood clot in his lungs. Cox’s account was later called into question. Vallow Daybell has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, she would face a life sentence without the possibility of release until serving at least 25 years. In opening statements, Vallow Daybell said during the encounter inside the house, Vallow chased her with a bat, and Alex shot Vallow in self-defense after she left the house. She has already been convicted in Idaho of killing her two youngest children and conspiring to murder a romantic rival, for which she was sentenced to life in prison.
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 Vallow Daybell and his brother Alex were behind Vallow’s death.
Adam Cox said Vallow’s killing occurred just before he and Vallow were planning an intervention to bring Vallow Daybell 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, Charles 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.
The trial over Vallow’s death will mark the first of two criminal trials in Arizona for Vallow Daybell. She’s 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, Melani Pawlowski.