PHOENIX — (AP) — 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.
Vallow Daybell, who chose to represent herself in both Arizona cases even though she isn’t a lawyer, used her final testimony to complain about the legal system and describe her belief that Jesus would free her from prison.
“If I were accountable for these crimes, I would acknowledge and let you know how sorry I was,” she said.
Judge Justin Beresky said Vallow Daybell has “shown blatant disregard for humanity,” and he refuted her claim that she didn’t get a fair trial in Arizona.
“You should never be released from prison,” Beresky said before handing down the sentence. “Eventually, the camera that you seek out, the media requests, will lessen over time and you will fade into obscurity.”
Authorities say Vallow Daybell 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 said Vallow Daybell conspired to kill Vallow so she could collect on his $1 million life insurance policy and marry her then-boyfriend Chad Daybell, an Idaho author of religious novels about prophecies and the end of the world. They said Boudreaux suspected Vallow Daybell and Cox were responsible for Vallow’s death.
Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said the trial was a long but necessary process to get justice for Vallow, Boudreaux and their families. Vallow Daybell will return to Idaho “knowing she didn’t get away with her crimes committed in Maricopa County,” Mitchell told reporters after the hearing.
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 on Daybell's property in rural Idaho. Daybell was sentenced to death for the gruesome murders of his wife, Tylee and JJ.
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.
Vallow Daybell’s only surviving child — her adult son Colby Ryan — described how he “had to fight to stay alive after the pain" of losing his siblings and Vallow, his stepfather who he referred to as his dad.
Testifying by remote link, 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.
Vallow’s brother, Gerry Vallow, lobbed scathing comments at Vallow Daybell.
“She wrote her own make-believe story, and she wrote it in blood,” he said. “And she tried to kill Brandon when he started looking like the next available dollar sign.”
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 earlier in the trial that his sister told people Vallow was no longer living and that a zombie was inside her estranged husband's body.
Prosecutor Treena Kay said Vallow Daybell twisted religion to justify her actions and dodged questions from Vallow's sons about how he died after informing them via text message.
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. Pawlowski had been attending religious meetings with her aunt and suggested to her husband that they stockpile food for the end of the world, Boudreaux said earlier in the trial.
Boudreaux described in court Friday how the attempt on his life caused immense stress and made him fear for his family’s safety. His sisters told the judge that their brother went into hiding with his children after the attack.
Prosecutors tied the Jeep to Vallow Daybell and said she loaned it to 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.
“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 and father but that he wouldn’t feel safe if she had freedom.
After the sentencing, Boudreaux told reporters he's grateful that the justice system worked.
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Schoenbaum reported from Salt Lake City.
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