'Doomsday mom' Lori Vallow is found guilty of attempted murder as she serves life for killing her two children
The 'doomsday mom', who is already serving a life sentence for killing two of her children, was convicted by an Arizona jury on Thursday of conspiring to kill Brandon Boudreaux, who was once married to her niece, outside his home in the Phoenix suburb of Gilbert.
Vallow was previously sentenced to life in Idaho in 2023 for murdering her two youngest children, seven-year-old Joshua 'JJ' Vallow and 16-year-old Tylee Ryan, as well as conspiring to kill Tammy Daybell, her fifth husband Chad Daybell 's previous wife.
Thursday's court result marks her second conviction in two months, with another Arizona jury finding the 'cult mom' guilty in late April of conspiring to kill her estranged husband, Charles Vallow, in July 2019 at her home in Chandler, another Phoenix suburb.
Her brother, Alex Cox, shot Charles Vallow and claimed he had done so in self defense. Cox was not charged before he died of a pulmonary embolism in December 2019.
Prosecutors have claimed that these deranged series of murders carried out by the unhinged mom and Daybell - who was sentenced to death in June 2024 for killing his ex-wife Tammy as well as Vallow's two children - were done so the new couple could run off together to pursue 'money, power and sex.'
Vallow's plot to kill Boudreaux, for which she was convicted Thursday, also had to do with her goal to get rid of anyone who stood in the way of her burgeoning relationship with Daybell.
Boudreaux testified that his marriage to Vallow's niece, Melani Pawlowski, broke down because she became heavily involved in Vallow's twisted cult.
Vallow and Daybell were Mormons who splintered off from the church because they were becoming increasingly radical.
Daybell was self-published author who wrote doomsday-focused fiction and would later promote spiritual beliefs to justify the murders, essentially saying his victims were possessed and marked for death.
Boudreaux explained that Pawlowski aspired to be like Vallow, which led to the two of them attending religious meetings in 2018. Soon after, Pawlowski was telling him that they should be stockpiling food for the end of the world.
By July 2019, the two began divorce proceedings.
The attempt on Boudreaux's life came on October 2019, when someone in a white Jeep rolled up to his house and fired a rifle shot that missed him but shattered a window on his car.
By this time, Vallow's children Joshua and Tylee had been missing for about a month.
Boudreaux previously claimed Pawlowski likely knew the location of their bodies, which weren't found until June 2020 after the search for them had swelled into a nationwide manhunt.
Boudreaux was also on high alert because Charles Vallow had been killed by gunfire months earlier. Boudreaux had gone to him for advice about his marriage to Pawlowski mere weeks before he was gunned down.
On the stand, Boudreaux said he immediately suspected Vallow and her brother Alex Cox, USA Today reported.
Prosecutor Treena Kay presented cellphone location data, receipts and video footage that placed Cox at the scene of the shooting driving what was later determined to be Vallow's Jeep.
She argued that Vallow gave Cox a fake alibi, arranged for the phone used in the plot and planned out the shooting.
Vallow, despite not being a lawyer, represented herself at trial and sought to downplay or outright deny all the evidence being presented against her.
At times, she suggested that the data could have been tampered with by prosecutors.
Vallow's closing argument shifted the blame onto Boudreaux as she claimed he had a vendetta against her because he blamed her for his marriage falling apart.
'Boudreaux decided that I was responsible for his family tragedy, and I'm really sorry he feels that,' Vallow said.
The jury spent just 30 minutes deliberating before convicting Vallow of attempting to murder Boudreaux.
In both of the Arizona cases against her, she is set to be sentenced on July 25. Each conviction carries a life sentence.
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