Idaho Mom Who Killed Her Kids Gives Opening Statements in Arizona Trial: 'A Family Tragedy Is Not a Crime, It's a Tragedy'

Lori Vallow Daybell, the Idaho mother convicted of murdering two of her children, gave a short and seemingly tearful opening statement in an Arizona courtroom, where she is on trial for allegedly conspiring to kill her fourth husband.

Lori, who is representing herself, told a jury on Monday, April 7, that she didn’t conspire to kill her estranged husband Charles Vallow, 62, for his $1 million life insurance policy as prosecutors alleged.

“As the state has mentioned, they are alleging that insurance money was my motive,” she said. “Spouses having insurance policies is not a crime.”

“Self-defense is not a crime,” she said. “A family tragedy is not a crime, it’s a tragedy.”

Charles was fatally shot twice in the chest by Lori’s brother Alex Cox at Lori’s Chandler, Ariz., home on July 11, 2019.

Cox, who claimed self-defense, was never charged with the killing and died of natural causes in December 2019.

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On the day of the killing, Lori claimed Charles showed up at her Chandler home in a rental car, came inside and started yelling at her. She alleged her daughter Tylee Ryan tried to protect her with a baseball bat and that Tylee and Charles began to fight over the bat. 

She said Alex intervened and the two men got into a physical struggle for the bat and fell onto the ground.

“The evidence will show that after the struggle on the ground between Charles and Alex, that Charles prevailed with the bat and began to come towards me with the bat as I ran away from him into the kitchen,” she claimed. “The evidence will show that at some point while I was running away from Charles who was chasing me with a bat, that Alex apparently retrieved his gun.”

During opening statements, prosecutors argued that Lori wanted Charles dead for his insurance to marry her fifth husband, Chad Daybell, an author of religious doomsday books.

“She would get a million-dollar life insurance policy from Charles Vallow,” prosecutor Treena Kay told the jury. “She would get social security for herself and their son, J.J. as a child of a dead spouse. And all of this would be true if Charles Vallow was dead.”

Months before the killing, Charles told officers that Lori had “lost her reality” and threatened to kill him, according to body cam footage obtained by ABC News.

Lori is currently serving life in prison without parole after she was found guilty of first-degree murder in the deaths of Joshua “J.J.” Vallow, 7, and Tylee, 16, in 2019.

J.J. and Tylee disappeared in September 2019 and after a long search, their remains were found buried on Chad’s Idaho property in June 2020.  Tylee had been dismembered and burned and J.J. was found wrapped in plastic and bound by duct tape.

Lori was also convicted of conspiring to kill Chad’s first wife, Tammy Daybell, who died from asphyxiation at the home she shared with Chad in October 2019. 

Chad was later convicted of killing his wife as well as J.J. and Tylee.