By Profiling Evil
On the morning of July 11, 2019, Charles Vallow was shot and killed inside a Chandler, Arizona home. The 911 caller identified himself as Alex Cox and claimed he had shot Charles in self-defense. What followed was a bizarre and tangled homicide investigation that would reveal dark religious beliefs, a death prophecy, and a conspiracy stretching across multiple states and agencies. The full arrest affidavit against Lori Vallow Daybell, Charles’ wife, tells a story of manipulation, spiritual extremism, and cold-blooded calculation. We’ll summarize the key parts of that affidavit in this blog.

The Scene of the Crime: Chandler Police responded to South Four Peaks Place after Alex Cox reported shooting his brother-in-law, Charles Vallow. At the scene, investigators immediately noticed oddities, including a bullet strike on the ground and conflicting accounts of what transpired. Alex claimed self-defense, but the timeline didn’t add up—and the 43-minute delay in calling 911 raised red flags. Despite initial inconsistencies, there wasn’t enough probable cause to arrest anyone that day. But things would soon unravel, including trouble in the Vallow relationship.

A Marriage in Collapse: Investigators learned that Lori and Charles Vallow were in the throes of a marital breakdown. Lori accused Charles of infidelity and vanished for over two months, leaving their adopted son JJ behind. Charles filed a mental health petition after Lori began claiming she was preparing 144,000 people for the end of the world and insisted that Charles was possessed by a dark spirit named “Ned Schneider.” Their fractured relationship was well-documented through bodycam footage, court documents, text messages, and police reports.

WATCH PROFILING EVIL’S THOUGHTS: Lori Daybell’s Opening Statement breaks down Lori’s strange courtroom strategy — https://youtu.be/DbEDHhvKOxQ

By October 2019, Lori’s trail of destruction widened. Her niece’s ex-husband, Brandon Boudreaux, was nearly murdered outside his home. He believed Alex Cox was the shooter and blamed Lori for tearing apart his family through religious fanaticism.

JJ’s grandmother, Kay Woodcock, raised concerns about JJ’s whereabouts, prompting a welfare check in Idaho. Lori lied to authorities, claiming JJ was in Arizona. He wasn’t. Nor was Tylee.

Meanwhile, Lori had secretly married Chad Daybell—just weeks after his wife Tammy died mysteriously in her sleep.
CATCH PROFILING EVIL’S COMMENTARY: Doomsday Mom to Jailhouse Preacher shows how Lori’s story went from spiritual leader to suspect — https://youtu.be/LM1hJHQYIiU

The Belief System That Justified Murder: Lori and Chad Daybell believed they had divine powers: teleportation, spiritual discernment, and even the ability to detect “dark spirits” or zombies. People were judged on a light-to-dark spiritual scale. Lori believed Charles, JJ, Tylee, and others had become dark and needed to be “removed.” According to witnesses, Lori frequently said she was acting on divine instructions, often beginning sentences with, “I have been told…”

Texts and Target Practice: Texts between Lori and her friend Zulema Pastenes (who would later marry Alex Cox) outlined plans to spiritually and physically attack Charles. On June 3, 2019, Lori wrote: “Let’s go spiritually tonight and work on him. This is war.”

Charles later discovered a fake email written by Lori to Chad, pretending to be Charles inviting him to Arizona. Charles confronted Lori and threatened to expose her affair to Chad’s wife. On July 9, Lori warned her allies: “It’s coming to a head. This week will change everything.”
CATCH PROFILING EVIL’S COMMENTARY: Charles’ Date Before His Murder — “He Was Dead, So I Clearly Didn’t Have Contact With Him” — https://youtu.be/cItobUpLh1s

The Morning of the Murder: Charles arrived to pick up JJ at 7:35 a.m. Lori left shortly after, taking Charles’ phone and rental car. GPS shows she went to Burger King and Walgreens, returning at 8:48 a.m. Alex didn’t call 911 until 8:32 a.m.—a 47-minute delay. Though he claimed to administer CPR, medics arrived to find blood pooling, with no life-saving efforts apparent. During that window, Alex called Lori.
CATCH PROFILING EVIL’S COMMENTARY: The Calm After the Kill explores Lori’s behavior following Charles’ death — https://youtu.be/P8l_gn3qQ5w

The Bullet Tells a Different Story: Autopsy results contradicted Alex’s story. One shot hit Charles standing up. The other hit him while he was on the ground, fired upward—a likely execution shot. Lori told police she had asked Alex to stay for protection. Alex denied this, claiming he was there for leisure. Their conflicting accounts only deepened suspicion.
CATCH PROFILING EVIL’S COMMENTARY: The Crime Scene and Charles Vallow’s Murder for a breakdown of physical evidence — https://youtu.be/rcptwko4PDI

The Script for a Killing: In a chilling post-murder message, Chad texted Lori: “It was a Nephi and Laban ending.” In Mormon scripture, Nephi slays Laban—deemed an obstacle to God’s plan—by divine command.
Lori had previously told her brother Alex and others that she would “be like Nephi.”
WATCH: This Was No Accident explores this spiritual justification for murder — https://youtu.be/A-4YodSJKnY

What Lori Did After the Murder: Immediately following Charles’ death, Lori contacted Chad Daybell about Social Security benefits. She told him she expected to receive $4,000/month. Investigators found a web search for disability benefits dated June 21—weeks before the murder. She wouldn’t have known the payout amount until after an August 12 SSA appointment, indicating she had planned ahead.
CATCH PROFILING EVIL’S COMMENTARY: What Was on Charles’ Phone? — A deep dive into postmortem digital data — https://youtu.be/NhYs4_4qxGg

Behind the Curtain, Lori’s Strategy on Trial: Lori chose to represent herself at trial. Her defense rested without calling any witnesses. When she filed a Rule 20 motion to dismiss, she bizarrely referred to the case as a “premeditated murder,” seeming to confirm the nature of the crime.
CATCH PROFILING EVIL’S COMMENTARY: Did Lori Just Confess to Murder? — https://youtu.be/Xh2kiGAVuO4

The Conspiracy is Clear: Lori was the common thread connecting each piece of this conspiracy. She lied to police, orchestrated spiritual missions to “remove” dark spirits, and actively coordinated with Alex and Chad. She cast herself as the chosen one, claiming divine guidance. But prosecutors say it was a cloak to justify cold-blooded murder.

WATCH MORE PROFILING EVIL COMMENTARY:
• Will Lori Try to Seduce the Jury? — https://youtu.be/_zQxqofGS5Y

• Lori’s Whole Enchilada — Silenced by Brother — https://youtu.be/wjFJs7fVerk

• Daybell Rests — https://youtu.be/Ya8aQZFkWcs

For more in-depth coverage of every day of testimony in Lori Vallow Daybell’s Arizona murder trial, subscribe to our YouTube channel and join the conversation at http://www.ProfilingEvil.com. Stay informed. Stay safe. And keep watching for signs. (Wow, that sounds like cult language!)
— The Profiling Evil Team