Lori Vallow Daybell Seeks Reversal of Idaho Murder Convictions
The Idaho Supreme Court heard arguments on whether procedural errors in the trial of the woman convicted of killing her two children and a romantic rival require a new verdict.
By Anthony Shevchenko ·
Lori Vallow Daybell stands to lose three life sentences if the Idaho Supreme Court upholds her convictions for the 2019 killings of her two children and a former romantic interest. The high court heard oral arguments on Monday in Boise, marking the next step in her legal challenge against the verdicts that have kept her behind bars since 2021. The case centers on whether mistakes by the trial judge in the lower court invalidated the jury’s decision to send her to prison for the rest of her life.
Her legal team argued that the trial court denied Vallow Daybell a speedy trial and unfairly restricted her choice of counsel. The judge had ruled that her preferred attorney had a conflict of interest because he had previously represented both Vallow Daybell and her husband, Chad Daybell. Her lawyers contend that this limitation affected the fairness of the proceedings and the defense strategy.
The appeal also challenges the admission of evidence from separate shootings in Arizona that were presented to the jury during the Idaho trial. Vallow Daybell’s attorneys argued that jurors should not have heard about the 2019 incidents involving Charles Vallow and Brandon Boudreaux in the Phoenix area. These cases involved a fatal shooting of her estranged husband and a non-fatal shooting of her niece’s ex-husband, respectively.
The underlying Idaho case involves the deaths of Joshua “JJ” Vallow, age 7, and Tylee Ryan, age 16, who disappeared in 2019. Their bodies were later discovered buried in rural Idaho on the property of Chad Daybell, who married Vallow Daybell weeks after the killings. The third victim was Tammy Daybell, a woman Chad Daybell had pursued romantically before his marriage to Vallow Daybell. Vallow Daybell, who holds doomsday religious beliefs, claimed that people in her life were possessed by evil spirits.
Chad Daybell, an author of religious novels about prophecies, was sentenced to death for the same three killings. He was convicted in the same Idaho trial as his wife. Vallow Daybell was separately convicted in Arizona of conspiring to murder Charles Vallow and Brandon Boudreaux. Prosecutors alleged she plotted with her brother, Alex Cox, to kill Charles Vallow to collect life insurance money and marry Daybell. Cox, who died of a blood clot in his lungs, was identified by prosecutors as the shooter in the Boudreaux case. Vallow Daybell received two life sentences in Arizona and has appealed those convictions as well.
The Idaho Supreme Court’s decision will determine whether the lower court’s procedural rulings warrant a retrial or a reversal of the verdicts. The court has not announced when it will issue a ruling. Vallow Daybell remains in custody while the appeal is pending.
