Doomsday mother, celestial being represents herself in Phoenix murder trial

Two years after being convicted of killing her children, an Arizona woman who claims to be a celestial being has chosen to represent herself against claims that she conspired to kill her ex-husband.

For the second time in two years, 52-year-old Lori Vallow Daybell finds herself standing before a jury, accused of murder.

As Courthouse News reporter Joe Duhownik writes from Phoenix, the “Doomsday Mom” now stands accused of orchestrating the murder of her ex-husband Charles Vallow. The late Vallow is one of several victims caught in a web of murders surrounding Vallow Daybell and her husband, Chad Daybell, a religious fanatic who spun tales of demonic possession, reincarnation and the apocalypse.

Prosecutors say Vallow Daybell and her husband used their cultish religious beliefs to justify killing her ex-husband as well as Chad Daybell's wife and Vallow Daybell’s two children, 7-year-old Joshua and 16-year-old Tylee.

Representing herself, Vallow Daybell spun her own story of what happened in Chandler, Arizona, on July 11, 2019, one that omits key details picked up by prosecutors.

During the trial’s first week, first responders cast doubt on Vallow Daybell’s story of self defense, and her brother recalled her mental decline after meeting Mormon author Daybell in 2018, eventually telling him "she was in the process of transferring from a mortal being to an immortal being."

The Phoenix trial is is scheduled to continue through May, with many more true crime twists and turns.

Keep reading for more Courthouse News.

Here’s what else happened in court this week:

The Supreme Court ruled that a Maryland man swept up in immigration raids and deported to an infamous prison for terrorists in El Salvador must be freed. [Kelsey Reichmann]

• Search secrets: At the urging of journalists, a federal judge expanded public access to the exhibits and closed-session testimony that will be introduced in an upcoming remedy trial to determine how to address Google’s monopoly over internet search. [Ryan Knappenberger]

• Bad rap: A jury slapped rapper Soulja Boy with a $4.25 million verdict after finding him guilty on civil claims of sexual assault brought by a woman he used to live with. [Hillel Aron]

• All that glitters is not gold: Three Alaska Native tribes are challenging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ recent approval of a gold mining project that would bring industrial suction dredging — a mining technique used to extract materials from the bottom of bodies of water— to a pristine estuary in Northwest Alaska. [Michael Gennaro]

• Long arm of the law: Using the principal of universal jurisdiction, a Gambian man who overstayed his visa in the U.S. is on trial in Denver, facing six charges related to the torture of five people under the order of the west African nation’s former dictator following a failed coup attempt in 2006. [Amanda Pampuro]

  

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Top 8: What you’ve been reading

1. Investors sue ByteDance for $58 billion over ‘rigged’ TikTok acquisition

2. Supreme Court orders Trump to help free Maryland father from El Salvador prison

3. Trump slammed for ‘covertly’ withholding FEMA funds from blue states

4. Federal judge clears way for national registry for immigrants

5. University of Oregon women athletes prevail over motions seeking to scuttle Title IX claims

6. Witness says Robert Menendez’s wife ‘wanted a Mercedes-Benz’ to set up meetings with disgraced senator

7. Federal judge rejects government’s bid to shirk refugee resettlement obligations pending appeal

8. DC Circuit lifts court order preventing CFPB dismantling

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In a new feature, reporter Kirk McDaniel unpacks the political rise of controversial Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who leaves a state house impeachment trial in the past to run for U.S. Senate against John Cornyn, a Republican critical of Trump.

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Rulings on our radar 📡

» Second Circuit: In vacating a lower court’s dismissal, the Second Circuit reminded TV host Wendy Williams’ ex-husband that “marital discrimination” is based on an individual’s relationship status, not whether a wife’s workplace fires him during their divorce proceedings.

» Eastern District of New York: A federal judge upheld a state ban on the use of the word “independent” in the names of political parties, after the term generated problems for unaffiliated voters during the era of the Independence Party, which existed from 1991 to 2020.

» New Mexico Supreme Court: The New Mexico Supreme Court posthumously vacated a man’s no contest plea to a charge of “attempt to cause or permit reckless child abuse,” because the crime does not exist in the state’s books.

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