Lori Vallow Daybell, the so-called “Doomsday Mom” who is already serving life sentences for the gruesome killings of her two youngest children, has been found guilty once again, this time of conspiring to kill her niece’s ex-husband.
The verdict marks her second murder conspiracy conviction in Arizona in less than two months.
She was convicted Thursday on a charge of conspiring to murder Brandon Boudreaux, who was once married to Vallow Daybell’s niece, outside his home in the Phoenix suburb of Gilbert.
In April, Vallow Daybell was found guilty in an Arizona court of conspiring with her brother, Alex Cox, to kill her estranged husband, Charles Vallow, in 2019 at her home in Chandler, another Phoenix suburb. Cox died in December 2019 and was never charged.
In that case, prosecutors argued she was motivated by an opportunity to cash in on Vallow’s US$1-million life insurance policy and a marriage to then-boyfriend Chad Daybell, who wrote several religious novels about prophecies and the end of the world.
Daybell is also serving life sentences for the deaths of Vallow Daybell’s children, seven-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow and 16-year-old Tylee Ryan, and his wife, Tammy Daybell.
This combination photo of undated file photos released by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children shows once-missing children Joshua “JJ” Vallow, seven, left, and Tylee Ryan, 17.
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children via AP
Vallow Daybell is scheduled to be sentenced in both Arizona cases on July 25. Each conviction carries a life sentence.
Boudreaux told the court that his ex-wife, Melani Pawlowski, aspired to be like her aunt Lori and that the two began attending religious meetings together in 2018, and soon Pawlowski was arguing that they should stockpile food for the end of the world.
In October 2019, someone in a Jeep outside Boudreaux’s home fired a rifle shot at him, missing him but shattering a window on his car.
Boudreaux recognized the Jeep as the vehicle that Vallow Daybell’s daughter, Tylee Ryan, regularly drove before her death.
Cellphone data, receipts and surveillance video placed Cox at the scene. Prosecutors argued that Vallow Daybell helped clear the way for the attack by arranging phone use and providing cover.
After the verdict was handed down on Thursday, Boudreaux thanked investigators for uncovering what he called “the truth,” and also the jury for turning that truth into a conviction.
He said, “2,078 days,” referencing the number of days since the shooting. “Hatred, selfishness and greed almost led to the end of my life.
“Twelve strangers verified that Lori must be held accountable. I did not enjoy sitting and giving someone who tried to kill me the chance to question me. But I owed it to Charles, to Tylee, to J.J., and to Tammy to speak — because I could.”
Vallow Daybell isn’t an lawyer but chose to defend herself at both trials in Arizona.
Despite multiple guilty convictions, Vallow Daybell has denied any wrongdoing in the murders and believes she’ll be “exonerated.”
In March, Vallow Daybell sat down with NBC Dateline correspondent Keith Morrison to discuss her plans for the future.
“We will both be exonerated in the future,” Vallow Daybell said of her and Daybell in the episode, titled, Lori Vallow Daybell: The Jailhouse Interview. “The same way I will be exonerated.”
When Morrison asked Vallow Daybell to expand on why she believes she will be exonerated, she said, “I have seen things in the future that Jesus showed me when I was in heaven and we were not in jail. We were not in prison.”
“After I get exonerated, maybe I’ll go on Dancing With the Stars,” she continued, “And you can come.”
— With files from Global News’ Katie Scott and The Associated Press