Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - 5 Big Updates in Lori Vallow's Arizona Murder Trial

Episode Date: March 12, 2025

Lori Vallow's long-awaited trial on charges she conspired with her brother to murder her estranged husband, Charles Vallow, is set to begin in Arizona next month. The 'Doomsday Cult Mom' has chosen to defend herself at trial and appeared in court this week to argue a number of issues. Vallow has hinted she might testify in her own defense. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy goes through the case in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://www.forthepeople.com/CrimeFixHost:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest: GiGi McKelvey https://www.youtube.com/@PrettyLiesAndAlibisCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this law and crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Aren't appearances not when they might seem to be, Keith? Could you get your life story out in 90 minutes, Keith? How old are you, Keith? Days after that combative interview with Dateline, Lori Vallow appears in court ahead of her trial for the murder of her estranged husband, Charles Vallow. It really violates my speedy trial rights if they do not give me a speedy trial by May 11th. I take a look at the case from the very beginning.

What happened today? How did it get to this? And what witnesses will Lori Vallow call as she defends herself. Will she take the stand? Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm your Jeanette Levy. Lori Vallow's trial for the murder of Charles Vallow is scheduled to begin next month. This is Lori Vallow's latest murder trial. And it feels a little weird to say that because this is actually her second. She was back in court this week ahead of her trial in Maricopa County, Arizona. Good morning, Your Honor. Pamela Hicks, Advisory Counsel on behalf of Ms. Daybell and Robert Abernathy is out of the office today. Okay. You want to announce? Lori Daybell, on behalf of myself. Yes, Lori Vallow is representing herself, and that always makes things more interesting.

I'll get to more of that court appearance in just a little bit. You don't want to miss it. But in case you haven't followed the case closely, this is Vallow's second trial because she's already serving life without parole for three murders in Idaho for the deaths of her children, Tylee Ryan and J.J. Vallow, and Tammy Daybell, the late wife of her current husband, Chad Daybell. Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell became known as the Doomsday Cult Couple because of their strange religious beliefs. Chad Daybell was a self-proclaimed Mormon prophet who wrote books. The pair believed in strange prophecies about the end of times and people being light if they were aligned with God and dark if they were with Satan. Lori had been married to

Charles Vallow for years, but things went south in 2018 after she met Chad Daybell. Here's Charles in January 2019, desperately trying to get Lori help by calling police in Gilbert, Arizona. I've had a run for my life. She thinks she's... You're LDS? Yes. She thinks she's married to Moroni in the past. You think she's what? Married to Moroni on top of the temple.

Angel. Angel. LDS. They don't let me in there. Probation. And she knows when the second coming is happening next year, so there's a profit. Now, what Charles Vallow is describing to the officers sounds very concerning and it only gets worse she knows when the second coming is happening next year so there's a profit okay he knows that she

knows she knows about it she meets with barona jesus christ basically in the temple every day i've tried to support as much as i could but's gotten really, really bad. She's had a break. She says, I'm Nick Schneider. I've taken over Charles' body. And Charles has been killed. I'm going to kill you. You're going to be murdered today or tomorrow. I can do it.

I'm out there with my priesthood, with my power. She's got priesthood blessings. Charles was trying to have Lori involuntarily committed so she could receive a mental health evaluation. A blurred body camera video shows Lori and her daughter, Tylee Ryan, at the police station where an officer talked about Charles' request. What it is is committal paperwork. They can hold you for 24, 48, however long they deem it necessary to get you evaluated. Based off just what your husband says.

Says. Yeah. So doctors play it safe. I just think it's funny because he's trying to get over it. Right. That's very smart. Because I'm really the one that did something wrong.

But here's the thing. I don't know, and I'm not going to take sides, but just talking to you, I mean, I don't see you being a danger to yourself or anybody else. You got your kids to school. mean, I don't see you being a danger to yourself or anybody else. You got your kids to school. Right. I don't know.

But I'm not going to place that. I'm just going to let you know that we are required, if you're here, that we will, even against with force, if we have to, if you're still here when it's approved, we'll have to take you to CDI. So the officer told Lori right there. He didn't see her as a danger to herself or others. And Lori actually joked about what was happening. I'm in a gym where I can work out. I'm happy. You'll be okay without your mama. You are going to get a padded room. Lori was not committed to a mental health facility. Let's fast forward six months to July of 2019. Lori Vallow's brother,

Alex Cox, shot and killed Charles Vallow at Lori's home in Chandler, Arizona. What happened today? How did it get to this? I don't know. He was enraged. What's going on? What happened? He was talking about my sister earlier. No, what happened today though? Like just in the last 20 minutes? He came to, he came at me with a bat. Okay. Was he living here or visiting? He came to pick up his son. Okay. Is his son inside? No. My sister took him to school. Okay. So it was just you at the house?

Yes. And he came, how long, what time did he come to pick up, pick up the son? I don't know, 20 minutes ago, maybe. You know, the cases that I cover go to show you just how unpredictable and scary the world can be. And having a great lawyer really matters. That's where our partner and sponsor Morgan & Morgan comes in. It's a firm with more than a thousand lawyers, and that's because the firm wins a lot. In just the last few months, Morgan & Morgan has secured a $9.3 million verdict for a car crash victim in Florida, a $5.6 million verdict for a car crash victim in Florida, a $5.6 million verdict for another

crash accident victim in Atlanta, not to mention a $1.8 million verdict in Kentucky after the insurance company offered the client a mere $5,000 in damages. Can you believe that? Even if you think your case isn't worth millions, why not start a claim and fight for what you deserve? Morgan & Morgan makes it really easy. You can start a claim from your phone in just eight clicks. So if you're ever injured, start a claim at ForThePeople.com slash CrimeFix or click the link in the description and pinned in the comments. Video from a Burger King showed Lori Vallow picking up food for JJ after the shooting.

Prosecutors would later say that Alex Cox waited more than 40 minutes to call 911 after killing Charles. Okay, what was he yelling at you about? I found my sister because I'd broken up a tussle with them earlier, and he told me not to interfere anymore with them or I'd pay, and he came at me with a bat. Okay, so he showed up in the house with a bat in his hand? Okay, so... There was a scuffle earlier with my sister and my niece. My niece got involved.

About earlier, meaning earlier this week, earlier this morning? No, no, no, just this morning, before they left. Before your wife left? My sister. Before your sister left? Yeah. Okay, who lives here with you? Nobody.

I don't live here. My sister lives here and my niece lives here. And you're just visiting? I was visiting for the night. Okay, so you're over here? Nobody. I don't live here. My sister lives here and my niece lives here. And you're just visiting? I was visiting for the night. Okay, so you're over here visiting your sister and your niece? Yes. Okay, and there was a tussle between your sister and her husband? Yes.

And does the husband live here or no? No. Okay. Okay, is he an ex-husband or just current husband? They're working on that. Gotcha. So at some point earlier today, they get into some type of domestic? Yeah, just this morning. Then they left, and then he came to me. Lori Vallow was interviewed by police that day about Charles.

It's all these threats on my phone all the time, you know, like whatever, all these things. And then he told me... What kind of threats? Just... You'd have to read them to know. He's always mad at me, right? And he doesn't want a divorce, but I don't like him and don't want to deal with him. So that's just how it is. So we've been married for 14 years, we've dealt with him for 14 years, and him being horrible to her. Like he gets in huge fights with her. A a lot of things but anyway so he said i'm coming on wednesday night all of a sudden i'm not i want to see jay jay i told him i said i will never keep jay jay from you you can come see you whenever you want to come take him to school

whatever like i'm not going to do that laurie fallow then talked about what led up to the shooting he comes back in i went to give him his phone he was screaming at me to give him his phone he was very worried about whatever was on his text that he did not want me to see. And so I was just holding it there and he was screaming at me. And I was kind of walking towards, around the house with it so he couldn't get it. He was like reaching for it and stuff like that. And so Tylee came out of her room upset and she had a, and she told him to leave her mother alone, like, right? So she was really, whatever, and he's screaming at her, don't you hit me with that bat, blah, blah, blah.

And then my brother heard all the commotion because he was in there, and so he came out into the main room, and I guess whatever. What's your brother's name? Alex. Alex, okay. And then he just started, he was screaming and he was super upset and whatever and he's yelling at Tylee, don't you try to hit me with that bat and blah blah blah.

And so Tylee, I guess, I don't know, she swung at him or what, but he like grabbed the bat from Tylee and then went to hit Tylee with the bat. It was, and I was right there, they were right there, and my brother grabbed him from behind, like just to stop him from hitting Tylee. You go like this, like he grabbed him like... Yeah, from behind, like just kind of to pull him back. And then they got into the thing

and he's hitting him with the bat and they're on the ground like grappling around or whatever and then um i mean it was all and he quickly and he hit your brother with the bat while they were grappling and stuff yeah i yes he was hitting him with the bat like swinging the bat you know back and forth and they were kind of like on the ground and I was like freaking out trying to go around knowing JJ was in the car yeah right and so then he got up and he had the bat like this towards me and I was going around the other side to try to just get out of his range where he kind of hit me and then um I had told Tylee because she was on the ground because after he took the bat from her, she fell back. And so I told her, I was like, go get in the car with JJ. Like, I don't want JJ coming into the house.

And I wanted her out of the way. I wanted the kids out of the way, whatever this fight was going to be. Police also interviewed Tylee Ryan. So you had talked about your stepdad, when you put the bat out, your stepdad was coming towards your mom. Can you describe to me a little bit better kind of what was going on there? Like, is there a reason you put the bat up? Yeah, he was walking towards my mom, and I just didn't want him to do anything, so I kind of just stuck out the bat. Like, my mom was right beside me, and he was right there,

so it wasn't, like, between them. Okay. It was kind of just, like, I just stuck it out to be, like, keep your distance, kind of. Alex Cox claimed he shot Charles Vallow in self-defense. By chance, Alex died months later of natural causes, and at this time, no charges were filed. Lori was charged in Arizona nearly two years to the day later

with conspiring with her brother to murder Charles Vallow. A potential motive? Money. Now nearly six years after Charles Vallow was killed, jury selection is set to begin April 1st. Lori Vallow was back in court this week, and she was objecting to having a camera in the courtroom for the trial. Yeah, Your Honor, I'd just like to add some case law to that. Shepard v. Maxwell, 337 U.S.

The United States Supreme Court, Mr. Justice Clark held that failure of the state judge in murder prosecution to protect defendant from inherently prejudicial publicity, which saturated the community to control disruptive influences in courtroom deprived the defendant of a fair trial consistent with due process. So that and Arizona versus Cheney, which was the defendant is entitled to fair and impartial trial when publicity pervades court proceedings to the extent that the proceedings were prejudiced to the defendant. So obviously you read my objection, so I just wanted to add those on the record. I am inclined to allow one pool camera.

I'll issue an order with more detailed findings later today or tomorrow. But essentially there won't be any media coverage during the jury selection process. What has happened before is that they just have the camera on my face the entire trial. So I think when the judge is speaking, the judge needs to be on the camera. When the state is speaking, they need to be on camera. If we can add that to the order, I think it would be good. All right, well, my draft already includes that there'll be no zooming in on a counsel table, anything on counsel table or anything being handled, notes or that sort of thing being handled by any of

the parties or the attorneys. So a camera will be allowed and the trial will be broadcast. Judge Justin Boreski plans to send a questionnaire to prospective jurors and made it clear what she'd like to see happen during voir dire. My e-questionnaire is going to be fairly basic. It's going to focus on qualifications, the charges, the witnesses, and then obviously whether they have an opinion about you or this case. For the people that make it past that level, we'll question them more thoroughly in person.

And like you were saying, as far as group kind of voir dire, in my experience, we went through 1,900 jurors in my last trial, so it would be good to do individual voir dire if we can, than group voir dire, because they learn things just in the voir dire, and it disqualifies a lot of jurors. I'm not opposed to that, but that's going to be sort of a day of play-it-by-ear sort of situation, whether we do small panels or just go a single person. If we go single person, our jury selection could extend into the next week.

Then Ballos said there are videos that she hadn't received from the state that showed her being interviewed by Gilbert police months before Charles was killed. You're saying you haven't gotten that? They have given four about 12 minute body cam videos of the policemen's body cams that were in the room with us. And they go in and out of the room at different times. So there's different body cams. They're all mixed up. It's not the full entire one. And the full entire, my understanding is that the full entire two hour interrogation room video

from the ceiling is available online, but I don't have it in Discovery. That's what I'm trying to clarify. So did the state disclose a, not a body cam, but an interrogation from up in the corner of a room vantage point? We just closed a lot. Let me see if I can find out. We did. Yes, my paralegal is present here as well and she has advised that we did. My mitigator showed me part of that video. Yes, previous, with my previous team. That's how I know about it. Otherwise I wouldn't know about it. She said, do you know this is online? I didn't have any idea.

And you're sure it's the Gilbert PD on that date? Correct. All right. I'll ask the state to follow up with Gilbert on that. If that is out there, obviously it should have been disclosed. Now this is all very interesting to watch. Lori Vallow representing herself in a murder trial. She then argued that she should be able to introduce Tylee's statements during the trial. Prosecution said, not so fast. So on your response as it relates to Tylee, you say, again, present sense impression. I don't think it's a present sense impression. You also argue excited utterance. What else? 8033, which is mental,

emotional, and physical condition with the same thing, her state of mind, then being scared. And also 8043, statementement Against Interest. They use that statement in the indictment where Tylee says that Charles says, if you hit me with that bat, you're going to jail. That's the part where she's nervous in her interview saying she's scared to tell the police that she's the one that brought in the bat.

So, state of mind and the Statement Against Interest both apply to Tylee's police interview. All right. Anything else? Does the state want to be heard further on that? Your Honor, the only further thing I think that the state will bring in is that obviously the defendant has been found guilty of killing both Tylee, other individuals, any of the exceptions that the defendant has done, we also believe that it would be improper for her to be allowed to bring them in under that theory. In other words, there's been a judicial finding

that the reason Tylee's unavailable as a witness is because of the defendant's actions. Correct, Your Honor. There has been a jury trial and she has been convicted of that. After Lori Vallow's trial for the murder of Charles, she will have a second trial for the attempted murder of Brandon Boudreau. Vallow said she wants that trial to begin as soon as possible. The state could combine the trials and do two trials at once, but they don't want to do two trials at once. So it really violates my speedy trial rights if they do not give me a speedy trial by May 11th for both cases. Not to mention that they did combine all the discovery

into one case. They didn't give me two different separate discoveries for two different cases, which would be much more convenient considering the voluminous amount of discovery that they piled onto us. Does the state want to combine both cases? Your Honor, if the court gave us a little time to work it out and the defendant wants to join them, I mean, obviously with a normal defense attorney, and I don't mean that in any way, normally they would be severed. Severed because you don't want one jury to know about the other two separate charges

and have a harmful rub-off effect of the evidence in one case affecting the evidence in another case. Correct, Your Honor. That's why they were filed separately. But if the defendant wants them together, the state would have to request this be pushed back slightly so that we could then get all the witnesses for that trial together since they were not subpoenaed for this trial. So as you can see, it was a pretty interesting day in court. And I want to bring in somebody who is an expert on this case to talk about all of it.

She is Gigi McKelvey, the host of the Pretty Lies and Alibis podcast. So, Gigi, just I want your thoughts, first of all, on this hearing where Lori Vallow is representing herself. She's making all of these arguments. I thought it was pretty interesting to watch. I mean, she actually was making some interesting arguments. I mean researching the things that she's arguing. It's really clear. But the one thing I do notice is when things seem personal to her, she sort of sheds this professional persona she's wanting to put forth. And you can hear in her voice, it's made the arguments are made with emotion. And that's something I think can be very tricky during trial. For example, when you have Kay Woodcock on the stand, somebody that Lori definitely is not a

huge fan of and vice versa, is she going to be able to maintain that level of composure when there's a lot of emotion involved? So I think these pretrial hearings are definitely a glimpse of what's to come, but also that emotion might be what gets her in the end. And do we have an outburst or a time where emotions take over and she runs wild? I think it's definitely a possibility. Yeah. And I was wondering about that too, because there are times where you can tell she gets upset, but she's able to somehow rein it in. But as you mentioned, we're pre-trial now. Right. And we're not in trial where she is actually going to be in front of these witnesses, people that she's known in her past.

So it will be interesting to too, is this this discussion. And it was kind of like disturbing almost where she's almost talking about wanting to use Tylee's statements in some respects. Like she's saying talking about an excited utterance and she's like citing all of these exceptions to the hearsay rules. Yikes. And then the prosecutor's like, yeah, you can't really do that. You can't murder somebody and then try to bring in their statements to help yourself at another trial. So it's I was kind of like, whoa, that to me was almost hurt. That was heartbreaking. It is. And it really rubbed everybody the wrong way because we all know what happened to Tylee. I mean, out of all of the victims, her remains were found in such a devastating state. They're really reflected a lot of hate towards her, in my opinion. And now to try and have her speak from the grave to benefit you, you know, the state made a good argument that you can't kill a witness and then turn around and use their statements to benefit you at trial.

And what she was wanting to bring in was the excited or what she claims is an excited utterance of Tylee saying that Charles threatened to send her to jail or call the cops if she hit him with that bat. And that leans towards the self-defense theory that the three of them told investigators. Now, I fully believe in the hour Lori was in the car taking JJ to school, going to Walgreens to buy flip flops, Tylee was probably coached. If you go back and look at the statements of all three of them that day that Charles was shot and killed, and you put all of their statements side by side, there are some very glaring discrepancies that a lot of us picked up on, but investigators didn't seem to pick up on, which is why I think this went to a self-defense theory up until the kids were missing and then you have another dead spouse.

If Tylee was critical in the interrogation room in that she admitted she brought the bat out, whether or not I believe that, I'm not so sure. But at the end of the day, I think that the state argued beautifully that she is not here. You were convicted of killing her. And now you can't use her own words to try to get you out of these charges. Yeah, it's just awful, awful. You brought up, you know, the self-defense theory and, you know, Lori Vallow filed some supplemental disclosures talking about her different theories of defense, self-defense being one of them, defense of others, third party at fault,

mere presence, procedural insufficiency of the state's evidence. She'll be talking about that. Then she sends a notice about possible witnesses at trial that she will call. And one she lists specifically is the defendant. Do you think that Lori Vallow will actually testify? I mean, she didn't have to list herself. She didn't have to do that.

I mean, a defendant can make the decision at the last minute to testify or not. But she listed herself. So do you do you think that we will hear from Lori Vallow? Will she take the stand at trial? I do think it's very possible that Lori could take the stand. In Lori's mind, she is the smartest person in the room. And I think she is convinced her explanation will win the jury over. That's what she has in her mind. I think in her mind, if she gets up there and explains her version of events, it's game over, not guilty. I do think it's very possible we see

her take the stand. And boy, do I hope I'm there for that. She also lists Nate Eaton from East Idaho News. He has covered this case extensively from the very beginning. Why do you think she's listing Nate Eaton as a witness who she wants to call? It's interesting to me because the murder of Charles Vallow happened way before Nate Eaton knew Lori Vallow's name. So I'm very curious. Is it something she's been wanting to do since the Idaho trial? Although Nate did say he does talk to Lori and he has for some time now privately through the prison messaging app.

Very curious as to why she's calling him. But it was so far before the kids were found to be missing. That happened July 11th, 2019. The public release didn't go out until December, and that's when Nate came on the picture going with Dateline to Hawaii to talk to Lori and Chad. I'm very curious why she called him, because at that point in this case, Nate really wasn't on the scene and had nothing to do with any of the news related to Charles's murder. I want your reaction on Lonnie Dworkin being her cell phone expert. He was the cell phone expert for Jodi Arias, a notorious murderer who you also covered. So talk to me about your reaction to her using

that particular expert in this case. Yeah, that name was a blast from the past. It's one of those I didn't think about for years after Jody's trial. And then when I heard it again, I immediately thought he was her cell phone expert. I'm curious to see what his angle is going to be with that. I have been through thousands of pages of documents in Charles Vallow's murder. They really have her pegged down each movement after the murder happened all the way back to the house. And then later that day, there's a lot of text messages in Charles's case to where there weren't as many in the Idaho cases. And you have multiple people involved in these texts. In Idaho, it was mainly Lori and Chad.

And in Chandler, for Charles's murder, you had Zulema. You had Melanie Gibb. You had Melanie Boudreau. So a lot more coming in digital evidence-wise in this trial. Although in Idaho, the digital evidence was very critical in nailing down where the kids were through Alex Cox's Google account but this one lots of digital evidence to go through and I'm just curious to see is he going to dispute her locations is he going to dispute text messages yeah I'm I'm really interested to see how he's going to bring this in

and try to dispute the thousands of messages from the beginning about how Charles was dark and the progression of these text messages and location pings when they were doing these cast out sessions, trying to cast the demon out before he was killed. We'll see what happens. But yeah, that was a name where I thought, oh, wow, that's a that's an old name that we heard way back when. And I'm actually going to go watch his testimony in Jody areas just to see kind of how he works. It's going to be interesting to watch for sure. It's just a horrible, horrible case. Charles Vallow lost his life and he was trying to help her. He loved her. It's just terrible.

Thank you so much, Gigi McKelvey. Appreciate your time as always. We'll have the trial covered for you. Thanks, Anjanette. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.