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News.com.au
24-04-2025
- News.com.au
‘Doomsday cult mum' found guilty after representing herself in murder trial
Lori Vallow Daybell, the so-called American 'Doomsday mum' or 'cult mum', has been found guilty of conspiring to murder her fourth husband in an extraordinary trial where she chose to represent herself despite having no experience as a lawyer. The 51-year-old is already serving three life sentences after a jury in Idaho found her guilty in 2023 of murdering her two youngest children, 16-year-old Tylee Ryan and 7-year-old Joshua 'JJ' Vallow, and conspiring to kill her fifth husband Chad Daybell's first wife, Tammy Daybell. Chad Daybell — a self-proclaimed Doomsday prophet — was sentenced to death last year over the same 2019 murders. In her latest trial, Vallow Daybell was this week convicted by a jury in Arizona for her role in the death of ex-husband Charles Vallow on July 11, 2019. The 62-year-old was shot by Vallow Daybell's brother, Alex Cox, in what he claimed was self-defence during an argument with Vallow Daybell. Police said Mr Vallow was left bleeding on the floor for about 43 minutes before 911 was called. Cox died months after the shooting from a blood clot in his lungs. Prosectors said Vallow Daybell was trying to collect money from Mr Vallow's life insurance policy and then marry then-boyfriend Chad Daybell. Her phone calls with the life insurance company recorded the moment she discovered he had changed the beneficiary of his $US1 million policy to someone else five months before he died. Video clips from the trial have attracted huge attention on social media, as the prosecution continually made objections during Vallow Daybell's questioning of witnesses on the stand and even through her closing argument to the jury. One video compilation on Court TV's TikTok of a series of objections was viewed more than 840,000 times. 'Only a narcissist would think they could represent themselves,' read one comment with more than 15,000 likes. Others described what they were seeing as a 'circus,' 'mind-blowing' and 'waste of the court's time and money'. When asked before the trial why she chose to represent herself, Vallow Daybell told True Crime Arizona that there were 'lots of reasons'. 'I'm not an attorney. I do not have training to be an attorney,' she said, adding she wanted a 'speedy' trial. In court, she assured the judge she was prepared to represent herself and told him she had studied case law while in prison and had 'real trial experience'. 'I have participated in three different full trials from beginning to end,' she said, which includes her 2023 guilty verdict. Following the guilty verdict this week in Arizona, one of the jurors spoke about Vallow Daybell's decision to represent herself. 'Many days she was just smiling and laughing and didn't seem to take anything very seriously,' Victoria Lewis told the Associated Press. Notable killers who have represented themselves in US courts include serial killers Ted Bundy and Rodney Alcala — the former was the subject of the 2019 film Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile starring Zac Efron, and the latter, Anna Kendrick's 2023 film Woman of the Hour. Other killers who have represented themselves include white supremacist Dylan Roof, who was responsible for a church shooting; Nidal Hasan, who went on a shooting rampage at military base; Colin Ferguson, who opened fire on a train, and the 'DC Sniper' John Allen Muhammad who gunned down people at random.
Fox News
07-04-2025
- Fox News
‘Doomsday mom' Lori Vallow shares why she made unusual legal move for 2nd murder trial: ‘Fighting for my life'
As the so-called "Doomsday Mom" is set to walk into an Arizona courtroom, Lori Vallow spoke about her decision to act as her own attorney in her latest murder trial. Vallow is representing herself as she faces murder conspiracy charges in relation to the death of her fourth husband, Charles Vallow, in Maricopa County. "I'm fighting for my life here," Vallow said in an interview with True Crime Arizona. In 2019, Vallow's brother, Alex Cox, shot her husband to death when Vallow went to pick up the couple's son at Vallow's Phoenix home. At the time of the killing, Vallow's daughter, Tylee, confronted Charles with a baseball bat after hearing screaming inside the house. Charles reportedly took the bat from Tylee, who told police she was trying to protect her mother, and allegedly tried to attack Cox. Cox told investigators he fired his gun in self-defense and was never charged in Charles' death before he died of natural causes months later. GET REAL TIME UPDATES DIRECTLY ON THE TRUE CRIME HUB "It's a tragedy, families have tragedies," Vallow told True Crime Arizona. "Things happen and there was a domino effect of tragedies in my life. And that's really sad." Prosecutors allege Vallow "agreed with Cox that at least one of them or another would engage in conduct constituting the offense of first-degree murder," according to a June 2021 indictment. The prosecuting attorney and Vallow's two advisory attorneys did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment. Vallow is opting to represent herself as opening statements are scheduled to begin on Monday. "I'm not an attorney, I don't have training to be an attorney," Vallow told True Crime Arizona. "There's something that I figured out when I got to this jail. This experience has been five years running. I went through a whole trial, you know, before in my other state, and then I was brought here to Arizona to face some more serious charges." While high-profile defendants choosing to represent themselves is not unheard of, it can provide a level of unpredictability within a courtroom that is already at the center of the nation's attention. SIGN UP TO GET TRUE CRIME NEWSLETTER "This gives [Vallow] a tremendous amount of control over the case, and she has little to lose, since she's already been sentenced to life in prison in Idaho," Andrew Stoltmann, a Chicago-based attorney who is not involved in the case, told Fox News Digital. "She may be intending to turn this case into a three-ring circus, and the best way to do that is by representing herself." When asked by True Crime Arizona about the "notion from the public" that she's choosing to represent herself because she has "nothing to lose" and that the trial is a "challenge, a show, a game" for her, Vallow brushed off the idea. "I never hear any of this stuff because I'm in a room [for] 23 hours a day and we don't have any access to any kind of news, or any kind of anything, really," Vallow said. "So I didn't know that people were saying that, but I wouldn't agree with that, obviously." Vallow's upcoming trial comes nearly two years after an Idaho judge sentenced her to life in prison for the 2019 murders of her children, Joshua "J.J." Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 16, along with conspiring with her fifth husband, Chad Daybell, to murder Daybell's wife, Tammy. Daybell was also convicted in the three murders and sentenced to death. Vallow insists she is ready for the trial and has been "working on my case for five years" and knows her case "better than an attorney can learn it in two years." "Here's the thing, when you waive your speedy trial, then they can keep you here as long as you want," Vallow told True Crime Arizona. "There are intelligent, strong, beautiful women in here that have been here for eight years because of family tragedies. It's the same, like, my case, a family tragedy, not crime. A family tragedy, and they're waiting, and they're facing the death penalty for a family tragedy."
