Lori Daybell’s trial for conspiring to kill her husband begins Monday in Arizona

PHOENIX — Maricopa County prosecutors and Lori Vallow Daybell will begin the process of picking 16 jurors on Monday — including four alternates — who will be tasked with determining whether she had a role in her previous husband’s death.

She will be tried for conspiracy to commit first-degree murder of Charles Vallow, who was shot in Daybell’s Chandler, Arizona, home on July 11, 2019, when he came to pick up his son, JJ Vallow.

Daybell will be representing herself in the trial, but she has attorneys and an investigator available. Judge Justin Beresky, who is overseeing the trial, said if she chooses to testify, she will need to write questions beforehand and have someone else ask them — warning she would not be able to tell a story to the jury.

EastIdahoNews.com will be offering daily updates on the trial on our website and recaps on Courtroom Insider every night.

LIVE UPDATES: Jury selection begins in Lori Vallow Daybell trial

Prosecutors claim Daybell conspired with her brother, Alex Cox, to kill Charles Vallow to get life insurance and Social Security money and then marry Chad Daybell.

In a pre-trial statement, prosecutors said they had not offered her any plea deal and were not willing to discuss a settlement. They said the trial is expected to last five weeks.

Some witnesses on the prosecutors’ witness list traveled to Idaho for Lori Daybell’s and her husband Chad Daybell’s previous trials — where both were found guilty of conspiring to murder Lori Daybell’s children and Chad Daybell’s wife — including Nathan Duncan, Nathan Moffat, Ariel Werther and Cassandra Ynclan.

Moffat testified in the Idaho trials that Vallow was shot twice, once while he was lying on the ground, which he said did not match the statement Cox provided immediately after the shooting saying he acted in self-defense. He said Cox claimed Vallow hit him on the head with a baseball bat, but his injury was not consistent with a forceful hit from a bat.

Moffat also said Lori Daybell and her daughter Tylee Ryan’s conversation on a ride after they had been interviewed about what happened was very lighthearted.

Kay Woodcock, Charles Vallow’s sister and biological grandmother to JJ, was also listed among the witnesses prosecutors plan to call in Arizona.

Multiple witnesses who were not involved in the earlier trial and whose perspectives have not yet been shared publicly are on the prosecution’s and Lori Daybell’s witness lists.

Lori Daybell is also charged with conspiracy to commit the murder of Brandon Boudreaux, who was shot at by someone in a Jeep Grand Cherokee in Gilbert, Arizona, in October 2019. The vehicle was tied to Cox, and officers testified at the Idaho trials that the vehicle was owned by Tylee, who they believe died in September 2019, before the shooting.

Because Daybell declined to waive her right to a speedy trial in either case, her second jury trial in Arizona will begin just weeks after this trial ends on May 30. That trial is set to last through June.

Cox died on Dec. 12, 2019, and was never charged with the death of Charles Vallow or the shooting of Boudreaux — although officers have said they believe he was the one who fired the gun in both instances. Investigators said Cox died of natural causes after he was found unresponsive on his bathroom floor, his death occurred the day after the body of Tammy Daybell, Chad Daybell’s previous wife, was exhumed.

Lori Daybell is already serving five life sentences, without the possibility of parole, in an Idaho prison after Judge Steven Boyce sentenced her for the murder of her two children — 16-year-old Tylee and 7-year-old JJ — and conspiracy to murder Tammy Daybell.

Chad Daybell was sentenced to death following his trial in early 2024. He does not face any charges in Arizona.

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