PHOENIX (
KSL.com
) — Twelve jurors are now tasked with considering whether Lori Vallow Daybell conspired to murder her niece’s estranged husband, Brandon Boudreaux, who testified that someone tried to shoot and kill him outside his home.
Daybell began crying when she said Boudreaux decided she was responsible for his family breaking apart. She said she supported her niece at that time, and now six years later, it is time for healing.
“When a family breaks apart it is a tragedy, with a devastation far reaching, affecting many people. I am not exempt from tragedy; none of us are. But what we learn from it is most important. Because of this experience I’ve studied the law and the judicial system, and that knowledge will stay with me forever,” she said.
Daybell is representing herself, and although she chose not to testify, she provided closing arguments for the jurors. Daybell said she does not feel defensive or angry, although jurors have seen her under attack.
She said there is more going on in the case than the jury knows — they have been shown opinions from “strangers trying to put together a narrative.”
Daybell told jurors there is no evidence that she conspired to commit murder, and if there were, prosecutors would have shown it to them.
“Nobody has all the pieces to the puzzle; it is complex. Like most families, this is a complex issue. And like the state, I was not there. But there was no agreement, no plan, no gain,” she said.
During her arguments, the judge sustained multiple objections and instructed her not to testify but only address things that were presented from the witness stand.
Prosecutors’ closing arguments
Prosecutor Treena Kay repeated Boudreaux’s account of a bullet hitting his car on Oct. 2, 2019, in her closing arguments, emphasizing that he told officers two names when asked if anyone might want to kill him — Lori Daybell and her brother Alex Cox. Prosecutors believe Cox, who has since died, was the gunman.
She said the evidence presented at the trial proves Daybell is guilty.
Kay said only a few people knew Boudreaux’s new address. Of those, only his wife Melani Boudreaux had connections with Daybell and Cox. The attorney said she was visiting her aunt and uncle as they were preparing for and planning the attempted murder.
She said evidence shows the Jeep the gunman was in belonged to Daybell and was in Arizona that week. She also reminded jurors that Daybell rented a storage unit to store the Jeep’s tire and back seat in and also brought Cox’s cellphone to that unit as alibi. But video evidence shows that Cox wasn’t at the storage unit.
“Even though Alex Cox’s phone is here, that’s just a ruse, that’s her aiding, that’s her conspiring, that’s her trying to cover up this murder for her brother, who is the shooter,” Kay says.
She also referred to a fake call between his phone and hers shortly before the shooting.
Kay said the brother and sister paid $200 to put additional tinting on a car that wasn’t either Daybell’s or Cox’s primary car because they needed a car to hide in and shoot out the back window from.
She said Cox “came pretty close to being successful” at firing from the back of a Jeep at Boudreaux’s moving car.
Kay said the only explanation that makes sense is that Daybell conspired with her brother to plan the shooting.
“Don’t fall for the defendant’s question about what is possible when the evidence shows exactly what occurred,” she said.
After Daybell’s arguments, Kay said Daybell misrepresented trial evidence, ignoring facts of a “very obvious, long plan” that began when she started meddling in her niece’s marriage. She said prosecutors don’t need to show any evidence of a written agreement because they presented evidence of “actions that are obvious.”
The trial
Prosecutors rested their case shortly before lunch Wednesday, and Daybell rested when the jurors were brought back after lunch. She did not call any witnesses.
Daybell asked to be acquitted outside the presence of the jury, arguing that the only evidence against her is her placing items in a storage unit and internet searches, which she said is not enough to prove her guilt.
Maricopa County Judge Justin Beresky ruled against her, saying prosecutors presented a compelling case to show that Daybell was aware of her brother’s plans.
Jurors decided to go home for the day minutes after receiving the case and will return to deliberate on Thursday.
This is Daybell’s third criminal trial. She was convicted of murdering two of her children — 16-year-old Tylee Ryan and 7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow — in Idaho two years ago, along with conspiring to murder them and her new husband’s then-wife Tammy Daybell. Earlier this year, she was convicted of conspiring to murder her then-husband Charles Vallow in Arizona.
In the first trial, she was sentenced to five terms of life in prison without the possibility of parole. She chose to wait to be sentenced for conspiring to kill Charles Vallow until after the verdict in this current case.
