PHOENIX (AP) — An Arizona jury has found Lori Vallow Daybell guilty of conspiring to murder her estranged husband, meaning the mother with doomsday religious beliefs faces another life sentence after she was already convicted in Idaho in the killings of her two youngest children and a romantic rival.
Prosecutors said she conspired with her brother, Alex Cox, in the July 2019 shooting death of 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.
Cox, who claimed he acted in self-defense when he fatally shot Vallow, died five months later from what medical examiners said was a blood clot in his lungs. Cox’s account was later called into question.
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, Vallow chased her with a bat, and Alex shot Vallow in self-defense after she left the house.
Vallow Daybell is already serving three life sentences in the Idaho case. In Arizona, she faces a life sentence without the possibility of release until serving at least 25 years.
