Arizona trial dates are set for 'Doomsday Mom' Lori Vallow Daybell
A judge on Tuesday decided Lori Vallow Daybell's Arizona charges — murder conspiracy and attempted murder, stemming from separate incidents — would be prosecuted in separate trials.
The murder conspiracy case, related to the July 2019 death of Daybell's fourth husband, Charles Vallow, would begin March 31, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Justin Beresky said.
May 30 would be the start date for the attempted murder trial, related to a shooting that narrowly missed Daybell's niece's ex-husband, Brandon Boudreaux, in Gilbert in October 2019, Beresky said.
Beresky also ruled during Tuesday's hearing that the names of Daybell's two youngest children would be included in juror questions to preclude seating jurors with prior knowledge of Daybell's convictions in Idaho for their murders.
Joshua "JJ" Vallow was 7 and Tylee Ryan was 16 when they were killed. Daybell was sentenced to life in prison for their murders. She was also convicted in Idaho of conspiracy to murder Tammy Daybell, the ex-wife of Chad Daybell, who Lori Vallow married weeks later.
Daybell and her fifth husband, Chad Daybell, believed in an imminent "doomsday" and that people around them were zombies, according to court records and testimony. Daybell has come to be known as the "Doomsday Mom," the title of a 2021 Lifetime TV movie about her.
Beresky ordered Daybell's former defense team to turn over any material Daybell claimed they had withheld, including a video of Gilbert police interviewing her.
In court, Daybell argued she had not received the video, but prosecutors said they had provided her with everything of which they were aware.
Daybell said she knew the video existed because her previous defense team had shown it to her online.
'If they have that link, why don't they just send it to the state?" Beresky said. "And that may help the state determine if that's something they've already disclosed.'
Daybell claimed her former defense team refused to help her.
'I'll tell you why they won't — because that is my former team, and they will not do anything to help my investigator, my paralegal," Daybell said. "They won't give us any information that they found. They won't talk to us at all because apparently there was a conflict."
Daybell requested that an expert she retained be allowed to inspect Charles Vallow's phone. Beresky warned that if her expert needed time to examine the device, admitting the findings could delay the trial.
The judge told her she had a choice: push the trial date to allow for more preparation or proceed as scheduled on March 31.
Daybell repeatedly asserted that she wanted to maintain the current trial date and invoke her right to a speedy trial, even if it meant limiting her defense's ability to review evidence.
'I understand that, and I also understand that I've only been given 10 hours" for the expert from the Office of the Public Defender, Daybell said. 'So if he could spend 10 hours this week getting it ready, then he can give us a report with the best that he can do.'
Beresky noted the defense already possessed digital forensic extractions from police evidence, including data from Charles Vallow's phone, and suggested the expert work from those files.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona trial dates are set for 'Doomsday Mom' Lori Vallow Daybell
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