***THE FOLLOWING IS WRITTEN BY A STUDENT JOURNALIST AND IS COMPLETELY ALLEGED***

Lori Vallow Daybell, a “doomsday mom” who received multiple life sentences for the murders of her 2 children and romantic rival, gave her an open statement on Monday in a separate trial for the murder of her 4th husband. Lori, who is serving as her own counsel, presented a timeline of the events that had occurred leading up to the July 11, 2019, fatal shooting of her 4th husband, Charles Vallow, 62 years old, by her brother Alex Cox. She said the day Cox shot Charles, he had an argument with her daughter, Tylee Ryan, who was 16 at the time and threatened her with a bat. 

Even though the couple had been distancing themselves away from each other, Vallow had come to her place in Chandelier, Arizona to pick up his son, police said in a statement. According to the police account, an argument between Charles Vallow and Lori started, and her brother intervened. “Charles lifted up the bat to hit Tylee and Alex intervened,” she said Monday in her opening remarks. She said a struggle with the bat led to her husband being in control of the weapon. “Charles prevailed with the bat and began to come toward me,” she said. 

At some point, as she tried to leave, Alex apparently retrieved his gun. ‘‘Alex shot Charles in self defense,’’ she said. But then she said it wasn’t until she returned from taking her son, Joshua, 7 years old, to school that she learned from police that Charles died. A Maricopa county, Arizona, grand jury indicted Lori, 51, in June 2021 on charge of conspiracy to commit murder. It later was upgraded to first degree murder, and she has pleaded not guilty. In her opening statement, she said there was no evidence in which they could tell that the killing of her husband was planned out by her brother and herself.

She does argue that Alex fatally shot her husband, but she said that he did that as self defense and in defense of her daughter. In her opening statement, she recalls what happened that Summer morning was that violence sparked in Charles, and he began to have an issue with Tylee. Prosecutor Treena Kay said earlier that Lori wanted her husband dead to “better her life.” In months before his death, he wanted to get  a divorce because he felt uneasy being around Lori, and he expressed concern for his safety. 

He said that he had returned home from a business trip and that she had taken his car and locked him out of their home. He told police that Lori was dangerous and that she had threatened to kill him. The video showed an officer asking Charles Vallow how she posed a threat to their children, JJ and Tylee. Police told Charles that the situation wasn’t criminal and that they weren’t able to require a mental health check on her at the time. He died six months later. Now, all we know is, separately, Lori is charged with conspiring to kill Brandon Boudreaux, her niece’s estranged husband. A trial date has not been set. She has pleaded not guilty.