"Doomsday mum" Lori Vallow Daybell has been found guilty and handed a life sentence for conspiring to murder her estranged husband by an Arizona jury.
This is the latest life sentence the Idaho murderer has received after she was already convicted in Idaho in the killings of her two youngest children and a romantic rival — her fifth husband's previous wife, Tammy Daybell.
Vallow Daybell made headlines after prosecutors argued the couple justified the killings by creating an apocalyptic belief system that people could be possessed by evil spirits and turned into "zombies".
In the latest trial, prosecutors said she conspired with her brother, Alex Cox, in the July 2019 shooting death of her husband Charles Vallow at her home in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler.
She was trying to collect money from his life insurance policy and planned to marry her then-boyfriend Chad Daybell, an Idaho author who wrote several religious novels about prophecies and the end of the world, prosecutors said.
Mr Cox, who claimed he acted in self-defence when he fatally shot Mr Vallow, died five months later from what medical examiners said was a blood clot in his lungs.
Jurors deliberated for a total of three hours over two days.
Vallow Daybell, who isn't an attorney but chose to defend herself at trial, told jurors that during the encounter inside the house, Mr Vallow chased her with a bat, and Mr Cox shot Mr Vallow in self-defence after she left the house.
Life sentences on top of life sentences
The trial marked the first of two criminal trials in Arizona for Vallow Daybell after she was found competent to stand trial on additional changes.
She's scheduled to go on trial again in early June on a charge of conspiring to murder Brandon Boudreaux, the ex-husband of her niece, Melani Pawlowski. Mr Boudreaux survived the attempt.
She will be sentenced in Mr Vallow's death after her second trial in which she faces another life sentence.
Vallow Daybell is already serving three life sentences in the Idaho case.
She was sentenced to three life sentences without parole in July 2023 for killing seven-year-old Joshua "JJ" Vallow and 16-year-old Tylee Ryan, as well as conspiring to kill her fifth husband's previous wife, Tammy Daybell.
Convicted of killing her own kids
Police began searching for Vallow Daybell's missing children in October 2019 after an extended family member became worried.
The family member said that their mother would not give a straight answer about where they were.
In June 2020, investigators announced they found human remains while searching Daybell's property in rural Idaho — and the bodies belonged to JJ and Tylee.
Tylee's DNA was later found on a pickaxe and shovel in a shed on the property, and JJ's body was wrapped in trash bags and duct tape, prosecutors said.
The judge in that trial, Steven W Boyce, said he would never be able to get the images of the slain children out of his head.
A parent killing their own children "is the most shocking thing really that I can imagine," Mr Boyce said.
Vallow Daybell justified the murders by "going down a bizarre religious rabbit hole, and clearly, you are still down there," the judge added.
"I don't think to this day you have any remorse for the effort and heartache you caused," he said.
Claims of living numerous lives on other planets
Last week at the Arizona trial, Adam Cox, another brother of Vallow Daybell, testified on behalf of the prosecution.
He told jurors that he had no doubt that Vallow Daybell and his brother Alex Cox were behind Mr Vallow’s death.
Adam Cox said Vallow’s killing occurred just before he and Mr Vallow were planning an intervention to bring Vallow Daybell back into the mainstream of their shared faith in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
He testified that before the death, his sister had told people her husband was no longer living and that a zombie was living inside his body.
Four months before he died, Mr Vallow filed for divorce from Vallow Daybell, saying she had become infatuated with near-death experiences and had claimed to have lived numerous lives on other planets.
He alleged she threatened to ruin him financially and kill him and he sought a voluntary mental health evaluation of his wife.
ABC/AP
