Lori Vallow Daybell, the Idaho mom currently serving life sentences for murdering her two children, is back in court this week over the death of her estranged husband.

Vallow Daybell, 51, has pleaded not guilty and chosen to represent herself in the six-week trial in Arizona. If convicted, she will face another life sentence in addition to the three she is currently serving: two for the murders of her children and one for conspiring to murder the wife of her fifth husband, Chad Daybell.

During Monday’s opening statements, the prosecution argued that Vallow Daybell worked with her brother Alex Cox to shoot her fourth husband, Charles Vallow, at his home in a suburb outside Phoenix in July 2019. Prosecutor Treena Kay argued the plan was that Vallow Daybell would cash in on Vallow’s life insurance policy and move forward with marrying Daybell, who was her boyfriend at the time.

Cox claimed the shooting was in self-defense and was not charged. He died of natural causes in December 2019.

This is the so-called doomsday mom’s third trial after being accused in the deaths of her two children and her husband’s estranged wife in late 2019.

What to know about this trial

In her opening statement, Vallow Daybell said there is no evidence she and her brother planned to kill Vallow in 2019.

Instead, she argued that on July 11, 2019, Vallow had gotten into an argument with Vallow Daybell’s 16-year-old daughter, Tylee Ryan, and threatened her with a bat. According to a police report, Cox, “fearing the argument would elevate into a physical altercation between Vallow and his estranged wife,” said he “intervened” and shot Vallow.

“Self-defense is not a crime. Family tragedy is not a crime, it’s a tragedy,” Vallow Daybell told the court.

Prosecutor Kay argued that Vallow Daybell had conspired with her brother before July 11 and “used religion” to justify killing Vallow. Vallow Daybell and Daybell co-led a Mormon religious sect, with a focus on the end-times and an impending “doomsday,” and believed Vallow was possessed by an evil spirit.

Kay also brought up that Vallow had filed for divorce seven months prior and had told police his wife had threatened to kill him.

Vallow Daybell’s previous convictions

After Vallow was shot, Vallow Daybell took her daughter, Tylee, who she’d had with her third husband, and her 7-year-old adopted son, Joshua “JJ,” to Idaho to live with Daybell. It was when the kids were deemed “missing” that Vallow Daybell became a prominent figure in the mainstream media, dubbed the “doomsday mom.”

By November 2019, family members said they hadn’t heard from the children in two months, so they requested a welfare check. Idaho police searched for the children for weeks and eventually arrested Vallow Daybell in Hawaii in February 2020, accusing her of desertion. The widely publicized search for the kids concluded when police found their remains on Daybell’s property in June 2020.

After the children’s remains were found, family members of Tammy Daybell, Daybell’s first wife, became suspicious about her October 2019 death — which happened three weeks before Vallow Daybell and Daybell got married in Idaho. It was initially believed Tammy died from natural causes, but after the children’s remains were found, her body underwent an autopsy and her cause of death was amended to be homicide.

In July 2023, Vallow Daybell was convicted of murdering her two children and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. She was also sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of conspiring to kill Tammy. The judge ordered Vallow Daybell to serve consecutive life sentences on the individual murder charges.

“Jesus Christ knows that no one was murdered in this case,” Vallow Daybell told the court at the time. “Accidental deaths happen, suicides happen, fatal side effects from medications happen.”

In September 2023, Vallow Daybell filed to appeal her convictions to the Idaho Supreme Court.

Vallow Daybell is scheduled to go on trial again in Arizona in late May on a charge of conspiring to murder Brandon Boudreaux, her niece’s estranged husband, to which she has also pleaded not guilty.