‘Doomsday Mom’ Lori Daybell set to be sentenced in Arizona murder conspiracy trials
Lori Vallow Daybell — dubbed the “Doomsday Mom” — is set to be sentenced Friday in Arizona after being convicted of conspiring to kill two people in 2019, including her fourth husband.
The 51-year-old, who is already serving a life sentence without parole for the murders of two of her children in Idaho, now faces additional prison time following her convictions in two separate trials earlier this year in Maricopa County. A judge will determine whether she will serve two more life sentences — with parole eligibility after 25 years each — for the charges of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, News.Az reports, citing ABC News.
Daybell was found guilty of orchestrating the killing of her estranged husband, Charles Vallow, with the help of her now-deceased brother, Alex Cox. Prosecutors said she conspired to murder Vallow in order to collect his $1 million life insurance policy and be with Chad Daybell, the religious fiction author she married just four months after the shooting.
Prosecutors also detailed a failed drive-by shooting later that year targeting Brandon Boudreaux, the ex-husband of her niece. In that case, Daybell was again found guilty of conspiring with Cox in a plot tied to the same radical religious ideology prosecutors claim she used to justify the murders.
During both Arizona trials, Daybell represented herself, clashing frequently with the presiding judge, Justin Beresky. She did not testify or call witnesses in her defense. In her closing remarks, she denied conspiring to commit any crime and portrayed her family’s involvement as a series of tragedies, not criminal acts.
Her brother, Alex Cox, who carried out the fatal shooting of Vallow and the attempted shooting of Boudreaux, died from natural causes in December 2019, months after both incidents.
Daybell’s sentencing in Arizona follows her 2023 conviction in Idaho, where prosecutors said she and Chad Daybell believed her children — Joshua "J.J." Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 16 — were “possessed” and killed them as part of a doomsday-driven plot. Their remains were discovered buried on Chad Daybell’s property in June 2020.
She and Chad Daybell were also convicted of conspiring to kill Chad’s first wife, Tamara Daybell, who died in October 2019, just weeks before the couple’s wedding in Hawaii.
While Lori Daybell is serving life without parole, Chad Daybell has been sentenced to death and remains on Idaho’s death row.
Friday’s sentencing in Arizona will determine whether Daybell’s prison time will grow even longer — a dramatic end to yet another chapter in a case that has gripped the nation.
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