Lori Vallow Daybell convicted in Arizona of conspiring to kill her estranged husband in 2019

PHOENIX (AP) — A woman whose doomsday religious beliefs led her to kill her two youngest children and engage in a plot to kill a romantic rival in Idaho was convicted Tuesday in Arizona for conspiring to murder her estranged husband.

Jurors found Lori Vallow Daybell guilty after deliberating for about three hours, and she faces another possible life sentence on top of the three she is already serving in Idaho. She will not be sentenced in Arizona until after she goes on trial in another alleged murder conspiracy.

Prosecutors said Vallow Daybell had help from her brother, Alex Cox, in the July 2019 shooting death of Charles Vallow at her home in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler. They say she was motivated by an opportunity to cash in on Vallow's life insurance policy and a marriage to then-boyfriend Chad Daybell who wrote several religious novels about prophecies and the end of the world.

Chad Daybell is also serving life sentences for the deaths of Vallow Daybell's children, 7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow and 16-year-old Tylee Ryan, and his wife, Tammy. Authorities in Idaho said the case included bizarre claims by Chad Daybell and Vallow Daybell that the children were zombies and that Vallow Daybell was a goddess tasked with ushering in an apocalypse.

Vallow Daybell, who isn’t an attorney but chose to defend herself at trial in Arizona, sat mostly still as the verdict was read but glanced occasionally at jurors as they were asked to confirm they found her guilty on the single charge.

One of the jurors, Victoria Lewis, said outside the courthouse that Vallow Daybell didn't do herself any favors by choosing to represent herself.

“Many days she was just smiling and laughing and didn't seem to take anything very seriously,” Lewis told reporters.

Vallow Daybell told the jury that Vallow chased her with a bat inside her home, and her brother shot Vallow in self-defense as she left the house. She told jurors the death was a tragedy, not a crime.

Cox died five months later from what medical examiners said was a blood clot in his lungs.

Vallow's siblings, Kay Woodcock and Gerry Vallow, told reporters outside court that they are grateful for the jury's decision.

“We gotcha, and you're not the smartest person in the room," Woodcock said when asked if she has a message for Vallow Daybell. “Everybody's going to forget about you.”

The Associated Press left email messages seeking comment Tuesday from the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted the case, and the lawyers who served as legal advisers to Vallow Daybell during the trial.

Last week Adam Cox, another brother of Vallow Daybell, testified on behalf of the prosecution, telling jurors that he had no doubt that his siblings were behind Vallow’s death.

Adam Cox said the killing happened just before he and Vallow were planning an intervention to bring his sister back into the mainstream of their shared faith in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He testified that before Vallow’s death, his sister had told people her husband was no longer living and that a zombie was living inside his body.

Four months before he died, 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.

Vallow Daybell is scheduled to go on trial again in early June, accused in a plot to kill Brandon Boudreaux, the ex-husband of Vallow Daybell’s niece. Boudreaux survived.

Yamat contributed from Las Vegas.

Colby Ryan arrives at Maricopa County Superior Court for the murder trial of Lori Vallow Daybell, his mother, who's charged with conspiring to murder her estranged husband, Monday, April 21, 2025, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Lori Vallow Daybell's uncle Rex Conner stands outside of Maricopa County Courthouse as he attends the Arizona murder trial of Vallow Daybell, who's charged with conspiring to murder her estranged husband, Monday, April 21, 2025, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

The assembled media are set up for live shots in front of Maricopa County Courthouse where the murder trial of Lori Vallow Daybell, who is charged with conspiring to murder her estranged husband, is being held Monday, April 21, 2025, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Maricopa County Superior Court building shown, Monday, April 21, 2025, in Phoenix, where the Arizona murder trial of Lori Vallow Daybell who's charged with conspiring to murder her estranged husband, is being held. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Colby Ryan leaves Maricopa County Superior Court for the murder trial of Lori Vallow Daybell, his mother, who is charged with conspiring to murder her estranged husband, Monday, April 21, 2025, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Colby Ryan leaves Maricopa County Superior Court for the murder trial of Lori Vallow Daybell, his mother, who is charged with conspiring to murder her estranged husband, Monday, April 21, 2025, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Lori Vallow Daybell's uncle Rex Conner leaves Maricopa County Courthouse after attending the murder trial of Vallow Daybell, who is charged with conspiring to murder her estranged husband, Monday, April 21, 2025, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

FILE - Lori Vallow Daybell stands and listens as the jury's verdict is read at the Ada County Courthouse in Boise, Idaho on Friday, May 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Kyle Green, File)

The head of PBS said Friday that President Donald Trump's executive order aiming to slash public subsidies to PBS and NPR was blatantly unlawful.

Public Broadcasting Service CEO Paula Kerger said the Republican president's order “threatens our ability to serve the American public with educational programming, as we have for the past 50-plus years."

"We are currently exploring all options to allow PBS to continue to serve our member stations and all Americans,” Kerger said.

Trump signed the order late Thursday, alleging “bias” in the broadcasters’ reporting.

The order instructs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other federal agencies to “cease Federal funding” for PBS and National Public Radio and further requires that they work to root out indirect sources of public financing for the news organizations. The White House, in a social media posting announcing the signing, said the outlets “receive millions from taxpayers to spread radical, woke propaganda disguised as 'news.'”

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funnels public funding to the two services, said that it is not a federal executive agency subject to Trump's orders. The president earlier this week said he was firing three of the five remaining CPB board members — threatening its ability to do any work — and was immediately sued by the CPB to stop it.

The vast majority of public money for the services goes directly to its hundreds of local stations, which operate on a combination of government funding, donations and philanthropic grants. Stations in smaller markets are particularly dependent on the public money and most threatened by the cuts of the sort Trump is proposing.

Public broadcasting has been threatened frequently by Republican leaders in the past, but the local ties have largely enabled them to escape cutbacks — legislators don't want to be seen as responsible for shutting down stations in their districts. But the current threat is seen as the most serious in the system's history.

It's also the latest move by Trump and his administration to utilize federal powers to control or hamstring institutions whose actions or viewpoints he disagrees with.

Since taking office in January for a second term, Trump has ousted leaders, placed staff on administrative leave and cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to artists, libraries, museums, theaters and others, through takeovers of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Trump has also pushed to withhold federal research and education funds from universities and punish law firms unless they agree to eliminate diversity programs and other measures he has found objectionable.

Just two weeks ago, the White House said it would be asking Congress to rescind funding for the CPB as part of a $9.1 billion package of cuts. That package, however, which budget director Russell Vought said would likely be the first of several, has not yet been sent to Capitol Hill.

The move against PBS and NPR comes as Trump's administration has been working to dismantle the U.S. Agency for Global Media, including Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which were designed to model independent news gathering globally in societies that restrict the press.

Those efforts have faced pushback from federal courts, which have ruled in some cases that the Trump administration may have overstepped its authority in holding back funds appropriated to the outlets by Congress.

AP Congressional Correspondent Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump holds up a signed executive order establishing the Religious Liberty Commission, during a National Day of Prayer event in the Rose Garden of the White House, Thursday, May 1, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

FILE - The headquarters for National Public Radio (NPR) is seen in Washington, April 15, 2013. AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)

FILE - Paula Kerger, President and CEO at PBS, speaks at the executive session during the PBS Winter 2020 TCA Press Tour at The Langham Huntington, Pasadena, Jan. 10, 2020, in Pasadena, Calif. (Photo by Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP, File)