Lori Vallow Daybell, the “Doomsday mom” who is already serving life sentences in Idaho in the deaths of her two youngest children and a romantic rival, received two more life sentences Friday in her murder conspiracy trials.
The sentences will run consecutively to each other and consecutively to the Idaho case, an Arizona judge said.
“You’ve shattered lives, you’ve undermined trust, you’ve sowed fear in the hearts of many,” Judge Justin Beresky said.
As Vallow Daybell was being led away, someone yelled: “Lori, rot in prison!”
In April, she was found guilty of conspiring to kill her fourth husband, Charles Vallow, in July 2019. Vallow Daybell, who represented herself at trial, told jurors that her brother shot Charles Vallow in self-defense after a family argument. Her brother, Alex Cox, died that same year from a pulmonary embolism and was never charged.
Less than two months after that conviction, Vallow Daybell was found guilty of conspiring to kill her niece’s now ex-husband, Brandon Boudreaux, outside his home in the Phoenix suburb of Gilbert. He told the jury that in October 2019, someone in a Jeep fired a rifle shot at him but missed. Boudreaux said he recognized the car as belonging to a family member.
Vallow Daybell, who represented herself at that trial as well, said in her opening statement that she had nothing to do with the shooting.
Friday’s sentencing ended a years long legal saga that involved doomsday religious beliefs, zombies, and evil spirits. Her current husband, Chad Daybell, is a doomsday author.
Before the sentencing was rendered, several family members presented victim impact statements to the court.
“Not only are my father, sister, and brother gone, but so is my mother,” Colby Ryan, the son of Charles Vallow and Lori Vallow Daybell, said virtually. “Starting 6 years ago, the horror began.”
Ryan talked about how he was initially told that his father died from a heart attack, but when he arrived at his mother’s home, he was told that Charles Vallow had been fatally shot. He told the court that at the time, he was not speaking to his father because his mother had told him that he was having an affair.
“I naively believed her and thought that my father betrayed my family. Little did I know, it was my mother having the affair all along,” he said. “I regretfully decided to stop speaking to my father. On July 11, 2019, I would be flooded by the reality that my choice not to speak to him would be a lifelong sorrow.”
Ryan remembered his father as a “very generous man” who “made sure we had a good life.”
Larry Woodcock, the grandfather of one of Vallow Daybell’s younger children, became angry and yelled at Vallow Daybell for making “murderous” choices.
“I hope you spend the rest of your life, 23 hours a day, regretting your choices,” he said. “You murdered Charles, the best thing that was ever in your life, for your delusional, narcissistic ways.”
Charles Vallow’s sister, Susan, broke down in tears as she talked about his death.
“My brother’s death was a deliberate act of evil and self-seeking financial gain,” she said. “Your greed has caused so much pain to this day.”
Boudreaux cried as he told the court how he’s battled depression, fear and paranoia since the shooting.
“Had this heinous crime succeeded, my children would have been left to face a lifetime of grief,” he said.
Boudreaux said he forgave Vallow Daybell “so I can be a better father … better husband … better son and brother.”
His wife, Jenny, said the shooting has forever changed their lives.
“The fear became constant,” she said, through tears.
Boudreaux’s mother and sister also broke out in tears as they recounted the shooting. His sister, Desirae, told the court that her family was in “constant worry and fear” in the months after the shooting.
“I have never known fear like what we experienced for those few months after the shooting,” she said, sobbing.
In 2023, Vallow Daybell was convicted by an Idaho jury of killing her two children, Tylee Ryan and Joshua “JJ” Vallow, and conspiring to kill her current husband’s first wife, Tammy Daybell.
Chad Daybell was convicted last year in the killings of Tylee, Joshua, and Tammy Daybell and sentenced to the death penalty.
The couple made headlines in 2019 after the two children disappeared in Idaho. Court documents revealed that Joshua, 7, had been buried in a pet cemetery on Chad Daybell’s property, and Tylee, 17, had been dismembered and burned in a fire pit.