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PHOENIX (CN) — “Doomsday Mom” Lori Vallow Daybell defended herself for the last time Wednesday in her second murder conspiracy trial in the last two months, this one regarding the attempted shooting of her former nephew-in-law.
“Who would want to kill you?” state prosecutor Treena Kay quoted two police officers asking Brandon Boudreaux after he was shot at in his Gilbert, Arizona, driveway in October 2019. “Brandon Boudreaux gave them the exact same answer. The names were Lori Vallow and Alexander Cox.”
Lori Vallow Daybell has already been convicted of the murders of her two children and the ex-wife of her lover and co-conspirator, Chad Daybell, as well as for conspiring to kill her ex-husband with her brother, Alex Cox. Prosecutors say she used extreme religious beliefs to justify killing relatives she claimed were “possessed” and blocking her spiritual mission. In reality, they argue, she wanted to collect life insurance and Social Security benefits to fund a new life with Chad, and eliminate anyone in her way.
After Cox killed her ex-husband and the children were found dead, prosecutors allege Vallow Daybell also plotted to kill her niece’s ex-husband, Brandon Boudreaux, but Cox missed, leaving key evidence behind.
In her closing argument Thursday afternoon, Kay laid out a timeline of evidence supporting a conspiracy.
The story begins in June 2019, when Lori Vallow Daybell began interfering in the marriage of Brandon Boudreaux and his then-wife, Melani. She claimed Boudreaux was gay, no longer loved Melani, and was trying to cut her off from the Mormon Church. By September, the couple had separated, and Boudreaux moved into a new home in Gilbert.
Soon after, evidence shows Vallow Daybell’s brother, Alex Cox, began searching for shooting ranges and window tinting services, taking her Jeep to get its windows darkened. On Sept. 26, Cox also activated a burner phone.
Cox, who lived with Vallow Daybell in Idaho at the time, left Idaho for Arizona on September 30, leaving his main cell phone with Vallow Daybell. Kay said Vallow Daybell used his phone to fake phone calls between them as an alibi.
A license plate reader in Holbrook, Arizona, captured a photo of the defendant’s Jeep, notably missing the rear spare tire, on Oct.1. Police later found a restaurant receipt in the vehicle, also dated Oct. 1.
Throughout the weeklong trial, Vallow Daybell tried to obfuscate evidence by pointing out differences in the color witnesses used to describe the Jeep they saw. But Kay said the evidence is clear.
“No matter what she wants to say about color, her Jeep was in Mesa on Oct. 1, 2019,” Kay said. “We can stop pretending that didn’t happen.”
On the morning of Oct. 2, Alex Cox used his burner phone to navigate to Brandon Boudreaux’s home. At 9:13 a.m., Boudreaux spotted a gray Jeep with tinted windows and Texas plates parked outside. A single gunshot shattered his driver’s side window, startling neighbors with the loud bang.
“Lori Vallow lived in Texas, and the Jeep used in the shooting was from Texas,” prosecutor Rachel Kay noted.
Later that day, Cox’s phone data showed him mapping a back-road route to Holbrook, while security footage from an Idaho storage facility captured Vallow Daybell and Chad Daybell removing the Jeep’s back seats and spare tire—reportedly to give Cox a better shot from the rear of the vehicle.
The two are seen retrieving the tire and the back seats the next day. Both the defendant and Cox googled news about the shooting.
Much like she has in her previous trials, Vallow Daybell painted the ordeal in her own closing argument as a “family tragedy.”
“I am not exempt from tragedy,” she said. “When we experience tragedy, we can grow stronger from our experience.”
The defendant claimed that no evidence had been presented proving she had made an agreement with Cox to kill Boudreaux.
“You did not see an agreement,” she said. “You did not hear an agreement.”
On rebuttal, Kay reminded the jury that the circumstantial evidence is more than enough to convict without a recorded verbal agreement.
“We don’t need words,” she said. “We have actions that are obvious.”
The jury received the case just before 3 p.m. and elected to leave for the day, beginning deliberations at 10 a.m. on Thursday.
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