Defense raises speedy-trial, choice-of-counsel and jury-evidence issues
The Idaho Supreme Court is scheduled to hear Lori Vallow Daybell’s appeal of her Idaho convictions for killing her two youngest children and conspiring to murder a romantic rival. The Associated Press reported that the hearing is set for Monday and that Vallow Daybell is asking the court to reverse convictions in the deaths of Joshua “JJ” Vallow, Tylee Ryan and Tammy Daybell.
JJ was 7 and Tylee Ryan was 16. Vallow Daybell holds doomsday religious beliefs and has claimed that people in her life were possessed by evil spirits, according to the Associated Press. Tammy Daybell’s husband, Chad Daybell, married Vallow Daybell weeks later.
The children went missing in 2019. Their bodies were found buried in rural Idaho on the property of Vallow Daybell’s new husband, Chad Daybell, an author of several religious novels about prophecies and the end of the world. Vallow Daybell received three life sentences in Idaho, while Chad Daybell was sentenced to death for the three killings.
Vallow Daybell’s lawyer argues that the lower court denied Vallow Daybell a speedy trial. The lawyer also argues that the lower court should have allowed Vallow Daybell to keep the chosen attorney.
The judge ruled that there was a conflict of interest because the attorney had represented both Vallow Daybell and Chad Daybell. The lawyer separately argues that the lower court should not have allowed jurors to hear about the shootings involving Charles Vallow and Brandon Boudreaux in metro Phoenix.
Months after filing for divorce from Vallow Daybell, Charles Vallow was fatally shot in July 2019 in Chandler by Vallow Daybell’s brother, Alex Cox. Cox claimed self-defense, but investigators later called that claim into question.
Nearly three months after Charles Vallow’s killing, someone parked in a Jeep and fired a gunshot at Brandon Boudreaux as he drove up to his home in Gilbert. The shot narrowly missed Boudreaux.
Prosecutors identified Cox as the person who shot at Boudreaux. Prosecutors say Vallow Daybell conspired with Cox to kill Charles Vallow so she could collect money from Charles Vallow’s life-insurance policy and marry Chad Daybell, then her boyfriend. Cox later died from a blood clot in his lungs.
Vallow Daybell was convicted separately in Arizona for conspiring to murder her estranged husband and her niece’s ex-husband, who survived. She received two life sentences for those Arizona convictions and has appealed them as well.