Police believe alleged cultist and killer Lori Norene Vallow, 47, conspired to commit murder in Arizona.
The Chandler Police Department completed a months-long investigation into the July 2019 death of Charles Vallow, Lori Vallow’s fourth husband, in early April.
In the end, police submitted the charge of conspiracy to commit first degree murder, according to Phoenix-based journalist Justin Lum.
Earlier this week, Vallow and her husband Chad Daybell, 52, were charged with the murder of Joshua “JJ” Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 17, who both disappeared in September 2019. The pair were also charged in connection with the October 2019 death of Daybell’s late wife Tammy Daybell, 49. Vallow was charged with conspiracy to commit murder; Daybell was charged with murder in the first degree.
RELATED: Judge Shuts Down Murder Case Against Lori Vallow Daybell: She ‘Is Not Competent to Proceed’
Late last spring, Vallow and Daybell were charged with hiding the children’s bodies after they were discovered on the husband’s rural property in Fremont County, Idaho. Vallow, for her part, had previously been charged with deserting her children.
The new conspiracy charge adds an additional layer of legal jeopardy.
According to local Fox affiliate WALA, the charging decision is currently in the hands of the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office. No word on which way the winds are blowing in the office on that front was immediately evident on Thursday.
The murky circumstances of Charles Vallow’s death have plagued both prosecutors and investigators for years.
Lori Vallow’s dead brother, Alex Cox admittedly shot and killed Charles Vallow–but claimed self defense and was never himself charged.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Cox died in December 2019.
Vallow and Daybell are alleged to have extensive doomsday cult affiliations. Filings in a separate civil case have highlighted some of Vallow’s alleged, and bizarre-if-true, beliefs.
Vallow was finally arrested in Hawaii in February 2020 after nonchalantly giving the slip to local police in Rexberg, Idaho. And, in the above-noted court filing from March of that year, she referred to her own two children as “zombies” around the time they went missing.
SEE ALSO: Court Filing: Lori Vallow Believed Her Children Were ‘Possessed and Had Become Zombies’
Notably, the news of Vallow’s latest charges came just as a judge in Idaho determined that she was not fit to stand trial over the murder of her children.
In early March, presumably due to the nature of those beliefs, concerns were raised in one of the prior cases against Vallow that she may not be mentally fit to stand trial.
Vallow’s legal battles have been effectively paused since then–when the competency evaluation was requested.
“The evaluation was ordered after the Defendant’s fitness to proceed was drawn into question by counsel,” a brief order issued by Idaho’s Seventh Judicial District on Thursday explains. “Pursuant to [the relevant law]. this case was stayed from further proceedings pending a determination of the issue of the Defendant’s competency.”
District Judge Steven W. Boyce granted that request and the results have now determined that the defendant is not, in fact, mentally competent.
“Thereafter the Court and counsel for the parties received the completed Psychological Assessment prepared by a Licensed Clinical Psychologist, who is qualified pursuant to [the relevant law’s governing fitness to stand trial] to perform such an assessment. The completed assessment determined that at this time the Defendant is not competent to proceed, and recommends restorative treatment.
In sum, Vallow now stands accused of two counts of murder in Idaho, three counts of conspiracy to commit murder in Idaho, and will likely be charged on one count of conspiracy to commit murder in Arizona. And at least one additional crime may yet be attributed to the Vallow family in the near future.
Brandon Boudreaux, the ex-husband of Vallow’s niece, Melani Boudreaux Pawlowski, (who is also alleged to be a doomsday cultist) believes Cox and Vallow conspired to kill him after he could no longer deal with the niece’s belief in what court papers have previously described as “a tabletop [role playing game] based on the Bible.”
[image via Madison County Jail]