Lori Vallow Daybell, the "Doomsday cult mom" wants to represent herself against murder charges in Arizona for the alleged murder of her fourth husband, Charles Vallow, and the attempted murder of her niece's ex-husband, Brandon Boudreaux.
According to court documents, Vallow Daylbell, the already convicted murderer, requested to waive her right to legal counsel and represent herself in her upcoming Arizona trial.
The court filing, dated October 25, indicates that Vallow Daybell submitted the request on October 16, while her public defender filed a motion to withdraw on October 21.
The presiding judge, however, has chosen to defer a decision on Vallow Daybell's request until after the completion of her Rule 11 process, a standard evaluation to determine mental competency.
Last week, the judge approved a request from her defense team for a formal competency evaluation, requiring two mental health experts to assess Vallow Daybell before her case can proceed.
The trial was scheduled to start on February 24, 2025.
Vallow Daybell, who is already serving a life sentence without parole in Idaho, was convicted earlier this year of murdering her two youngest children,Tylee Ryan and Joshua "JJ" Vallow, along with Tammy Daybell, the former wife of her fifth husband, Chad Daybell.
In June, Chad Daybell received a death sentence for the same crimes.
Chad Daybell was a self-published writer of Doomsday-focused fiction when he and Lori Vallow Daybell had an affair while they were part of a "Doomsday cult" that shared apocalyptic religious beliefs.
Prosecutors in Vallow Daybell's Idaho case called witnesses who claimed the couple conspired to kill the two children and his first wife because they wanted to overcome any obstacles to their own relationship.
Lori Vallow Daybell's Mental Health
In February 2023, a psychiatric assessment of Vallow Daybell revealed that she suffers from a "delusional disorder" intertwined with "hyper-religiosity" and an "unspecified personality disorder" with narcissistic features.
Ahead of her murder trial in Idaho last year, Vallow Daybell spent approximately nine months in an Idaho state mental hospital. Following her treatment, a judge ruled her competent to stand trial, affirming that she was mentally fit to proceed. Her trial had previously been delayed when she was ordered to undergo mental health treatment.
During Vallow's and Chad Daybell's Idaho trials, prosecutors presented evidence of the pair's extreme religious ideologies. They argued that Lori Vallow Daybell and Chad Daybell believed in a system of "light" and "dark" souls, with "dark" souls being so malevolent they could inhabit "zombies."
Vallow Daybell's purported beliefs, combined with her diagnosis, contributed to her high-profile trial's intense media coverage and public fascination.
Lori Vallow Daybell Denies Murdering Her Kids
In a recorded phone call with her oldest son Colby Ryan released earlier this month, Vallow Daybell claimed Tylee accidentally killed JJ, then herself.
"What if Tylee was holding JJ down and trying to get him not to scream and be loud in an apartment? What if she held him down too long and realized afterward what she had done?" Vallow Daybell said on the phone to an astonished Colby Ryan.
Upon finding her dead kids, Vallow Daybell claimed she "ran out" of the apartment and someone else did something with their bodies.
"I wasn't aware what happened to them after I left that scene," she said. "Their spirits were gone from their bodies. They were already in heaven."
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