Lori Daybell cites self-defense in opening statements of ex-husband murder trial

PHOENIX (CN) — For the second time in two years, Lori Vallow Daybell stood before a jury Monday morning accused of murder.

“Doomsday Mom” Vallow Daybell is accused of orchestrating the murder of her ex-husband Charles Vallow — part of a web of murders surrounding her and her husband, religious fanatic Chad Daybell, who spun tales of demonic possession, reincarnation and the apocalypse.

Prosecutors say Vallow Daybell and her husband used their cultish religious beliefs to justify killing her ex-husband and later Chad Daybell’s wife and Vallow Daybell’s two children, Joshua and Tylee.

But on Monday, Vallow Daybell, representing herself, spun her own story of what happened in Chandler, Arizona, on July 11, 2019.

Charles Vallow arrived early that morning at Vallow Daybell’s house to take 7-year-old Joshua to school, Vallow Daybell recounted in a Phoenix courthouse before a 16-member jury.

As the former spouses got into a heated exchange, Vallow Daybell claimed that 16-year-old Tylee grabbed a baseball bat to defend her mother, Charles Vallow took control of the bat. She said that then Alex Cox, Vallow Daybell’s brother, shot Charles Vallow twice.

“Chandler police treated this incident as self-defense,” Vallow Daybell told the jury, prompting the first of many objections to her out-of-line statements and improper questions throughout the first day of trial. In the afternoon, Maricopa County Judge Justin Beresky had to interrupt her cross-examination of a first responder to explain what hearsay is.

Telling her side of the story, Vallow Daybell left out key details, like how Charles Vallow told police he feared for his safety months prior when the defendant apparently told him he had been possessed by a demonic spirit named Ned Schnieder, whom she would kill if she had to.

“There has to be an agreement. There has to be a plan,” Vallow Daybell told the jury, explaining why she isn’t guilty of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.

But Vallow Daybell didn’t mention texts she sent to the shooter just weeks before the incident.

“‘It’s all coming to a head this week,’” Maricopa County Deputy Prosecutor Treena Kay quoted from Vallow Daybell’s texts in her own opening statement. “‘I will be like Nephi, I’m told. So will you.’”

The message refers to a prophet in the Book of Mormon whom God ordered to kill the character Laban to collect bronze plates engraved with scripture.

The message reflects the teachings of Chad Daybell, a former member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints who hailed himself and Vallow Daybell as deities sent to lead the 144,000 survivors of the apocalypse. He taught that people were sometimes possessed by demons and turned to zombies, and would have to be dealt with accordingly.

Kay said Vallow Daybell’s religious beliefs were an excuse, her real motive being the $1 million life insurance policy she had on her ex-husband and the Social Security money she could collect on her children’s behalf.

But unbeknownst to Vallow Daybell, Charles Vallow removed her as a beneficiary on her life insurance policy.

“It was probably Ned, before we got rid of him,” Vallow Daybell apparently texted to Chad Daybell a week after the murder.

After Cox shot and killed Charles Vallow, Kay claimed, Vallow Daybell left the house with her two children, the murders of whom she was convicted in 2023. Cox waited 47 minutes to call 911, Kay said, attempting to repaint the scene as an accident.

Kay said the jury would hear from medical examiners who found that the first bullet was shot straight through Charles Vallow’s heart, while the second entered through his abdomen and exited through his left shoulder, which Kay said is evidence that the victim was lying on the floor rather than fighting off an attacker.

Though Cox pulled the trigger, Kay said it was Vallow Daybell who ensured that the victim couldn’t leave the scene by stealing his phone and refusing to return it.

“Lori Vallow is why Charles is dead," she said.

Cox died of a blood clot five months later. He was never charged.

All 79 gallery seats in the Phoenix courtroom were filled with reporters, true crime fanatics and others who traveled from as far as South Carolina to see the Doomsday Mom in action. The trial got off to a slow start though, delayed by 45 minutes to wait for a late juror.

In that time, Brandon Boudreaux, the subject of an attempted murder trial Vallow Daybell will face in May, requested that he be removed from the witness list so that he could watch the proceedings. Vallow Daybell listed but didn’t subpoena Boudreaux as a witness, but Maricopa County Judge Justin Beresky dismissed him until Vallow Daybell could demonstrate his relevance.

In the witness box, first responders explained what they saw at the scene, but no evidence of foul play or motive was introduced.

Tuesday morning, Vallow Daybell will cross-examine Scott Cowden, a firefighter who did CPR on Charles Vallow before declaring him dead.

The trial is expected to last six weeks, though Kay said Monday morning that she thinks it will move more quickly.

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