Jurors in the Lori Vallow Daybell trial have delivered a guilty verdict on charges of conspiracy to murder her fourth husband, Charles Vallow, as announced on Tuesday. The decision comes after roughly three hours of deliberation. Vallow Daybell, who is already serving multiple life sentences for the murders of her two youngest children and her current husband's first wife, now potentially faces another life sentence in Arizona. According to AP News, prosecutors argued that the motive behind the conspiracy was a lethal combination of financial gain and her troubling doomsday religious beliefs.
Vallow Daybell chose to defend herself during the trial in an unusual move that jurors found to be ineffective. "Many days she was just smiling and laughing and didn’t seem to take anything very seriously," juror Victoria Lewis told AP News. The decison was clinched by damning evidence found in Vallow Daybell's text messages which jurors found to compellingly suggest guilt, according to details revealed by three jurors who spoke with FOX 10 Phoenix.
During the trial, Vallow Daybell posited that the death of her husband was a result of self-defense, carried out by her brother, Alex Cox, after Vallow allegedly chased her with a bat. Cox, who the jurors learned is deceased, died five months later, identified by medical examiners as having succumbed to a blood clot in his lungs. The defense narrative did not resonate with the jury, nor did it ultimately impact the jury's decision-making process, which seemed to have primarily gravitated around her idiosyncratic courtroom demeanor and the content of her text messages.
After the verdict, Vallow Daybell's demeanor in the courtroom and during interviews proved to be critically altered, according to the jury's perception. "She would just kind of look at us and smile and smirk. So it kind of gave it away for a lot of it like she just kind of didn't really care," juror Tass Reed-Tucker explained to FOX 10 Phoenix. The jurors were reported to be almost speechless upon being informed that the only witnesses from the day of Charles Vallow's death are also deceased.
The case is far from closed for Vallow Daybell, as she is scheduled to stand trial again in early June, accused in a plot to kill the ex-husband of her niece. Meanwhile, members of Charles Vallow's family expressed relief and pointed criticism post-verdict. "We gotcha, and you’re not the smartest person in the room," Kay Woodcock, Vallow's sister, said to reporters.
