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Idaho mom who killed 2 of her kids goes on trial over death of her husband

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Idaho mom who killed 2 of her kids goes on trial over death of her husband


PHOENIX — Lori Vallow Daybell, the Idaho mother with doomsday religious beliefs who was convicted of killing her two youngest children and conspiring to murder a romantic rival, is on trial again. This time, she’s accused in Arizona of conspiring to murder her estranged husband.

The case has drawn public attention in part because Vallow Daybell, 51, has doomsday-focused religious beliefs. She isn’t a lawyer but has chosen to represent herself in the six-week trial. Opening statements are scheduled Monday in a Phoenix courtroom.

Prosecutors say she conspired with her brother to kill Charles Vallow, so she could collect money from his life insurance policy and marry her then-boyfriend Chad Daybell, an Idaho author who wrote several religious novels about prophecies and the end of the world.

Vallow Daybell has pleaded not guilty and has not spoken publicly about the details of Vallow’s death. Here’s what to know about the case.

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Vallow was fatally shot in July 2019. Vallow Daybell then moved to Idaho with her children, Joshua “JJ” Vallow and Tylee Ryan. She married Daybell just two weeks after the death of his wife, Tammy Daybell. The children went missing for several months before their bodies were found buried in rural Idaho on Chad Daybell’s property. JJ was 7 and Tylee was 16.

Vallow Daybell is already serving three life sentences in Idaho for the children’s deaths and for conspiring to kill Tammy Daybell. Chad Daybell was sentenced to death in the three killings.

Four months before he died, Charles Vallow filed for divorce from Vallow Daybell, saying she had become infatuated with near-death experiences and had claimed to have lived numerous lives on other planets.

He alleged she threatened to ruin him financially and kill him. He sought a voluntary mental health evaluation of his wife.

Police say Vallow was fatally shot by Vallow Daybell’s brother, Alex Cox, when Vallow went to pick up his son at Vallow Daybell’s home in Chandler, a Phoenix suburb. Vallow Daybell’s daughter, Tylee, told police that she confronted Vallow with a baseball bat after she was awakened by yelling in the house.

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Tylee said she was trying to defend her mother, but Vallow took away the bat, according to police records. Cox told police that he fired after Vallow refused to drop the bat and came after him.

Cox told investigators that Vallow Daybell and the children left the house shortly before the shooting. Investigators say she went to get fast food for her son and bought flip-flops at a pharmacy before returning home.

Cox, who claimed he acted in self-defense and wasn’t arrested in Vallow’s death, died five months later from what medical examiners said was a blood clot in his lungs. Cox’s account was later called into question.

Vallow Daybell was a beautician by trade, a mother of three and a wife — five times over.

Her first marriage, to a high school sweetheart when she was 19, ended quickly. She married again in her early 20s and had a son. Then, in 2001, she married Joseph Ryan, and they had Tylee. They divorced a few years later, and Ryan died in 2018 at his home of a suspected heart attack.

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Charles Vallow entered the picture several months later. Vallow and Vallow Daybell married in 2006 and later adopted JJ, but by 2019 their marriage had soured. The two were estranged but still married when Cox fatally shot Vallow.

Public interest from around the world only grew as the investigation into the missing children took several unexpected turns, each new revelation seemingly stranger than the last.

Daybell, who was once a contestant on “Wheel of Fortune,” has been the subject of a Netflix documentary and Lifetime movie.

While representing herself, Vallow Daybell has complained about news coverage of her criminal cases, invoked her right to a speedy trial, questioned whether a government witness was truly an expert and engaged in disputes over the pre-trial exchange of evidence.

At a hearing last week, she lost a bid to strike three people from the prosecution’s witness list, including the grandmother of her adopted son. Another witness says Vallow Daybell spoke about Vallow as being “possessed” in the months before his death. When the judge asked her to argue her point, Vallow Daybell lowered her head, sighed and paused a few seconds. “Their information is not firsthand,” Vallow Daybell said. “These witnesses are all coming together. They are watching everything that goes on on TV regarding this.”

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If convicted in Arizona of conspiring to kill Vallow, she would face a life sentence.

Vallow Daybell will wear civilian clothing during her trial and will not be handcuffed or shackled when jurors are in the courtroom. She, however, is expected to be wearing a belt-like device under her clothes that will let a jail officer deliver an electric shock by remote control if there’s a disturbance.

The Idaho investigation began at the end of 2019 when Vallow Daybell’s adopted son’s grandmother, worried about his welfare, reached out to police. Vallow Daybell had been evasive when asked about her two youngest children.

Chad Daybell called 911 in October 2019 to report that his wife Tammy Daybell was battling an illness and died in her sleep. Her body was later exhumed, and an autopsy determined she died of asphyxiation.

Idaho police did a welfare check on the kids in November 2019 and discovered they were missing and hadn’t been seen since early September. Vallow Daybell and Chad Daybell left town a short time later, eventually turning up in Hawaii without the kids. She was arrested in Hawaii in February 2020 on a warrant out of Idaho.

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Defense attorneys told jurors that she was a “kind and loving mother” who happened to be interested in religion and biblical prophesies.

A witness at the Idaho trial said Vallow Daybell believes evil spirits have taken over people in her life and turned them into “zombies.”

The trial over Charles Vallow’s death will mark the first of two criminal trials in Arizona for Vallow Daybell.

She’s scheduled to go on trial again in late May on a charge of conspiring to murder Brandon Boudreaux, the ex-husband of Vallow Daybell’s niece, Melani Pawlowski.

Someone in a Jeep fired a gunshot at Boudreaux in 2019 outside his home in a Phoenix suburb, missing him but striking his car. The Jeep matched the description of one registered to Charles Vallow, who was killed nearly three months prior to the shooting outside Boudreaux’s home.

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Vallow Daybell has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, she would face a life sentence. ____ Associated Press writer Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho, contributed to this report.



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Gov. Little signs bill ending license plate registration stickers in Idaho

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Gov. Little signs bill ending license plate registration stickers in Idaho


Gov. Brad Little has signed House Bill 533, which would remove the need for license plate stickers on Idaho vehicles.

The legislation, introduced earlier this session by Rep. Jon Weber (R) of Boise, eliminates the requirement for registration stickers on Idaho license plates. Weber stated during the bills intorduction that officers can verify the status of license plates without the stickers, potentially saving the state around $300,000.

During the bill’s introduction, some lawmakers argued that it could increase the workload for law enforcement.

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The new law is set to take effect in July.



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Idaho resolution opposing same-sex marriage advances

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Idaho resolution opposing same-sex marriage advances


For the second year in a row, House lawmakers will consider urging the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn its ruling legalizing same-sex marriage.

The nonbinding resolution, which carries no legal weight, says the decision in Obergefel v. Hodges violates the longstanding religious definition of marriage between one man and one woman.

“The current definition of marriage that allows for same-sex marriages is a defilement of the word marriage,” said Rep. Tony Wisniewski (R-Post Falls), who sponsors the measure.

The resolution further states that the Obergefel decision “arbitrarily and unjustly” rejects the historical definition of marriage.

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Idaho voters passed a constitution amendment in 2006 that defines marriage as between one man and one woman, which was invalidated by the Obergefel ruling.

Wisniewski said regulating marriages should be a power left to the states.

Rep. Brent Crane (R-Nampa) agrees.

“If you want to get things … closer to the people with respect to some of these more complex social issues, I think the best place for those things to happen is in the states,” Crane said.

Doing so is a risk, he said.

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“You may have states that choose to acknowledge [polyamorous relationships]. You may have states that choose to have relationships between adults and younger children,” Crane said.

Cities in neighboring Oregon and Washington, for example, are considering giving those in polyamorous relationships legal recognition.

But he said that risk is worth it to allow other states that choose to only recognize traditional marriages.

Four lawmakers on the House State Affairs Committee opposed the resolution.

Rep. Erin Bingham (R-Idaho Falls) said she’s tried to balance her own religious beliefs with those of others while considering the measure.

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“I do feel like that it is important for us to work together, to find ways to compromise and to live together in peace and mutual respect,” Bingham said.

The resolution now goes to the House floor for consideration.

House lawmakers last year passed a similar measure, but it never received a hearing in a Senate committee.

Copyright 2026 Boise State Public Radio

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University of Idaho professor awarded $10M after TikTok tarot influencer claimed she ‘ordered’ quadruple murders

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University of Idaho professor awarded M after TikTok tarot influencer claimed she ‘ordered’ quadruple murders


A University of Idaho professor won a $10 million judgment after a tarot TikTok influencer publicly pushed false claims that she was behind the savage quadruple slayings of four college students.

A Boise jury in US District Court ordered fortune-telling Texas TikToker Ashley Guillard on Friday to pay $10 million after concluding she falsely accused professor Rebecca Scofield of having a secret romance with one of the four victims and orchestrating their killings, the Idaho Statesman reported.

Following the verdict, Scofield thanked the jury and said she hopes the case sends a clear warning that making “false statements online have consequences in the real world.”

Ashley Guillard posted TikTok videos falsely linking a University of Idaho professor to the Idaho college murders, leading to a defamation lawsuit. TikTok/ashleyisinthebookoflife4

“The murders of the four students on November 13, 2022, were the darkest chapter in our university’s history,” Scofield told Fox News.

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“Today’s decision shows that respect and care should always be granted to victims during these tragedies. I am hopeful that this difficult chapter in my life is over, and I can return to a more normal life with my family and the wonderful Moscow community.”

Scofield, the university’s history department chair, filed the lawsuit in December 2022 — just weeks after Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin were brutally stabbed to death at an off-campus rental home in Moscow, Idaho, on Nov. 13, 2022.

Guillard began uploading videos to her more than 100,000 TikTok followers in late November 2022, accusing Scofield of a secret relationship with one of the students and claiming she had “ordered” the killings, garnering millions of views across the social media platform.

The complaint states that Scofield had never met the victims and was out of state when the murders occurred.

Idaho murder victims Madison Mogen, 21, top left, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, bottom left, Ethan Chapin, 20, center, and Xana Kernodle, 20, right, and their two surviving roommates.

Even after being served with cease-and-desist letters and after police publicly confirmed Scofield had no connection to the murders, the Houston-based tarot reader continued posting videos, the history professor’s legal team argued.

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Guillard doubled down on her accusations against Scofield after being sued, posting a defiant video saying, “I am not stopping,” and challenging why Scofield needed three lawyers to sue her “if she’s so innocent.”

The professor’s legal team argued the defamatory accusations painted her as a criminal and accused her of professional misconduct that could derail her career.

Bryan Kohberger pleaded guilty to the savage slayings in July 2025 in a plea deal that took the death penalty off the table. AP

Bryan Kohberger, then studying criminology at Washington State University, pleaded guilty in July 2025 to the quadruple murders in a deal that took the death penalty off the table. He is currently serving four consecutive life sentences in Idaho.

In June 2024, Chief US Magistrate Judge Raymond Patricco found Guillard’s statements legally defamatory, leaving damages to be decided by a jury.

During the damages trial, Scofield described the anguish of seeing her name tied to the murders online, the Idaho Statesman reported.

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The off-campus home where four University of Idaho students were stabbed to death on Nov. 17, 2022, in Moscow, Idaho. James Keivom

However, Guillard, acting as her own attorney, insisted her comments were simply beliefs based on tarot card readings.

She claimed to have psychic powers and testified that she relied on tarot cards to try to solve the shocking homicides that shook the rural college town and sparked global attention.

It took jurors less than two hours to return their verdict, the outlet reported.

The jury awarded Scofield $7.5 million in punitive damages in addition to $2.5 million in compensatory damages.

With Post wires

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