Day 4 - 10th April 2025
Morning
Lori Vallow Daybell is on trial in Maricopa County, Arizona, on one charge of conspiracy to commit the murder of Charles Vallow, her fourth husband. Nate Eaton is live in the courtroom with updates. Please excuse any typos. Times listed below are in Mountain Standard Time, so they are an hour behind Idaho. (Arizona does not observe Daylight Saving Time.) The most recent updates are at the top.
12:11 p.m. We are recessing for lunch. Back at 1:30 p.m.
12:10 p.m. During the March girl’s weekend, Treena asks if there was just one time when Lori asked the women to cast out Ned. That’s what Sarena recalls.
12:09 p.m. Sarena says she had never done that in a group setting and had never even heard of it.
12:07 p.m. Sarena says once she started raising questions about the casting and belief, things changed. During the group casting, all the ladies came together and Lori asked for help for her husband because she needed to cast out the evil spirit. She asked to go around the room and everyone take turns casting out to see if they could get rid of the spirit.
12:06 p.m. “Prior to this, I thought zombie was like a Hollywood thing. But she tried to relate the zombie to the evil spirit inside somebody – like her husband,” Sarena says.
12:05 p.m. Treena got the impression that the evil spirit named Ned was now in Charles’ body based on how Lori described it. Sarena heard Lori use the term “zombie.” It stuck out to her “very much.”
12:04 p.m. Treena asks Sarena if she’s someone who questions things. Sarena says she does question things and she was asking a lot of questions to Lori about castings. She also spoke with the other ladies about it.
12:03 p.m. Treena asks if during the girl’s weekend, Lori talked about her husband being possessed. Yes she did. “I recall that she spoke about her husband being possessed by an evil spirit and she named the evil spirit. Ned.”
12:01 p.m. Lori used the term “casting out,” according to Sarena. During the weekend trip, Lori asked everyone to help cast out a spirit from her husband Charles. Sarena has a vague memory of meeting Charles – it was a quick meet as Sarena was leaving Arizona. She thinks they may have met briefly at the airport.
12 noon Treena asks about the girl’s weekend in March 2019. Lori brought up casting. It was a “cleanse” or casting out evil. Sarena has prayed to get rid of evil.
11:59 a.m. Treena asks if Lori ever talked to Sarena about casting. She did. Sarena believes Lori is the person who brought up casting and it was spoken of on more than one occasion.
11:58 a.m. Sarena remembers Lori talking about light and dark levels. “I remember her talking about changing physically and spiritually.”
11:56 a.m. Sarena doesn’t remember if Lori was just talking about her not needing to repent or the group of ladies. Sarena has been interviewed by the police. Once was in April 2021 at Chandler Police Department. During that interview, Treena told officers that Lori said, “We don’t need to repent anymore. We’ve come to that stage.” Sarena: She was trying to get all of us to believe that.”
11:55 a.m. “What I remember is she has a couple of verses in the Bible that she pulled out, read and then said, ‘I believe we don’t need to repent anymore,'” Sarena says. Treena asks if that stood out of her. “Oh yeah. It was shocking. It was very concerning.” It was against her religion.
11:54 a.m. They were all members of the LDS Church. Lori began telling Sarena things that went against the teachings of the LDS Church. Lori told Sarena she no longer needed to repent. Sarena talks about what repentance means.
11:53 a.m. The girl’s weekend was going to be at Zulema’s house. Sarena thinks she met Zulema at the first Preparing a People conference in Arizona. Lori, Melanie Gibb, Zulema, Christina, Nicole and Sarena were all part of the girl’s weekend.
11:52 a.m. Sarena knew Lori was married when she stayed at her house. Sarena had no idea Lori and Chad were having an affair. After Sarena left the house for the weekend, she was invited back to Arizona in March 2019 for a girl’s weekend.
11:50 a.m. Sarena talked to Chad that weekend. She saw him at another Preparing a People conference in February 2019 in Idaho. Sarena contemplated moving to Idaho. She learned Chad lived in Idaho and met with him about moving there. She was house hunting with a realtor in Rexburg.
11:49 a.m. Sarena points out Lori in the courtroom. Sarena remembers Lori and Melanie were at Lori’s house. Chad Daybell was also there. That was the first time Sarena met Chad.
11:48 a.m. Melanie and Jason both offered a place in their home for Sarena to stay. Melanie agreed to pick Sarena up at the airport. After she picked her up, she said that instead of her house, because her whole family was home, they were going to stay at her friend’s house whose family was gone for the weekend. The friend was Lori Vallow. They had never met before.
11:47 a.m. Sarena attended two Preparing a People conference. They helped people with emergency preparedness and preparing for the second coming of Jesus Christ. She attended a conference in Arizona in November 2018. She knew two people – Melanie Gibb from phone conversations and Jason Mow.
11:45 a.m. Sarena lives in Queen Creek, Arizona. She lived in Connecticut in 2018-2019. She moved to Arizona before COVID. Sarena is LDS – raised in the church. She considers herself a spiritual person.
11:44 a.m. Sarena Sharp is the next witness. She is sworn in and takes her seat on the witness stand.
11:42 a.m. Lori has no further questions. Judge asks if the jury has questions. There are none. Adam’s testimony is done.
11:41 a.m. “No doubt in my mind that they killed him,” Adam says. He told his family this. Treena has no other questions. Judge says the last line of questioning from the gun on was beyond the scope, so he is allowing Lori to re-cross on those issues if she wishes. Lori turns around and consults with her advisory attorneys.
11:40 a.m. Adam didn’t know at the time that Alex had a gun and extra ammunition at the house. Since then, Adam says “it seems extreme.” Adam told his family after that he believed Lori and Alex had conspired to kill Charles. “Lori had told people that Charles was no longer living and there was some zombie named Ned living in his body.”
11:39 a.m. Adam was aware his brother had guns and was concerned that he was at Lori’s so early. It seemed odd that Adam would bring a gun that was loaded with extra magazines to the house where JJ was. Lori objects and says this is beyond the scope. Judge overrules.
11:38 a.m. After Adam told Lori her beliefs were not true, that kind of ended their relationship. Treena asks if Adam was the person who was supposed to be with Alex on the 10th until the 11th. “If I would have spent the night with him, yes.” That stood out to Adam because he had made plans with his brother.
11:37 a.m. Treena asks if Adam has talked to his sister since Charles was shot and killed. He says no. He cut off all communication. Prior to that, Lori had told Adam she was becoming a celestial being and other things that were not in line with the LDS faith.
11:36 a.m. “Mr. Cox, did you see or hear or personally witness me conspire with my brother Alex Cox to murder my husband Charles Vallow?” Lori says. Adam says, “No.” Lori, “Thank you. No more questions.”
11:35 a.m. Lori lists all the cities where Adam worked. “And I was in Texas,” She says. “Arizona, Hawaii.” “So would you say we have not been physically close during the last 20 years?” Adam: “Yes, I would say that.”
11:35 a.m. Lori asks how often they communicated. He says sometimes through text messages, calls, etc.
11:33 a.m. The last time they communicated was when they were speaking in the kitchen in 2018. Lori asks if they were eating her green chile chicken enchiladas. He does not remember that. Lori says, “That we made every time we got together for like 10 years?” Adam does not remember.
11:31 a.m. Lori says, “Mr. Cox, how long has it been since we’ve seen each other in person.” He doesn’t know. Lori lists off a bunch of years and he says, “Something like that.” Lori asks Adam if he saw her at Colby’s wedding in 2018. “No, I was not there.” So did you see me sometime that year at my house? “Possibly.”
11:30 a.m. Adam stuck up with Charles and it created a break in the family. They did not talk for a long time after this. They have since started to talk. Treena has no other questions. Now it’s time for Lori to cross.
11:29 a.m. Adam then called his mom and said, “Do you know Charles is dead?” Mom says she did. Adam asked what was going on. His mom said, “You tell me what’s going on!” Adam thought that was really weird. He said that they needed to talk. He and Zac got in the car and went to his mom’s. The conversation did not go well, Adam says, and it created a break in the relationship with his mom.
11:27 a.m. Adam is aware that Lori had called her husband dark. Treena asks about the friend Googling that Charles had been killed by Alex. “I freaked out for a little bit, cried, thought my world was coming apart. Then I got angry a little bit. The first thing I did was call Kay and ask her because she’s the only one I felt safe calling, knowing my family was involved in this. I asked her if she knew Charles was dead and she says she just learned of it too.”
11:25 a.m. Treena asks Adam if he can tell the story of Nephi. “He was a prophet. A humble servant of the Lord and ironic enough, his brothers tried to kill him at one point. He actually ended up going to Jerusalem to get these plates back. He was run off, came back and then went back again because the Lord asked him to. When he did, King Laban, who was actually a wicked king, was laying on the ground drunk in front of them and Nephi was told to kill Laban.” Treena asks, “Who was he told by?” Adam says, “The spirit or God.” Treena: “So God was using a holy spirit to tell him to kill Laban? And did he?” Adam says, “Yes.”
11:24 a.m. Adam knew Alex regularly went shooting. Adam never told anyone in the family about the intervention. Yet Lori told police that she was aware Adam was planning an intervention. “It wasn’t something you told her about?” Treena asks. Adam says, “No.”
11:22 a.m. When Adam was talking with Eric that something doesn’t feel right, Eric said, “What’s his last name?” Eric Googled Charles Vallow and it popped up that he had been killed by his brother-in-law. “Everything, chaos, a knot in my stomach, probably one of the worst feelings I’ve ever felt in my life.”
11:21 a.m. Adam asked his family if anyone had heard from Alex. Nobody had. Adam had kept the intervention a secret from his family – Charles had asked him not to tell anyone. They were worried someone like Alex, Mom, Dad or Summer might try to prevent an intervention.
11:20 a.m. Adam went to see a friend named Eric in Tucson the next day. Zac went with him. Adam told Eric it was very fishy that he had not heard from Charles. “My mind was spinning. I had no clue what was going on.” Adam thinks maybe Charles just wanted to be with JJ but wondered if other things were going on too.
11:19 a.m. Adam and Zac played basketball that night but Holmes was not there. Adam did not learn that Charles had been shot on July 11. Nobody in his family talked to him about it. On July 12, he didn’t hear anything from Lori, Alex or anyone in his family.
11:16 a.m. Adam texted Alex and Alex did not respond. Adam texted Charles at 7:49 a.m. that he was going to play basketball with Zac. “Holmes is always there either playing ball or interviewing people. I will try to catch him to have a conversation with my old friend.” Charles never responded.
11:15 a.m. Adam then texted Charles, “They are planning something.” Everything seemed very suspicious and Alex being at Lori’s house that morning “felt like something was really off.”
11:13 a.m. On July 10, the day before Charles was shot, Adam doesn’t recall talking with him. Adam assumed he and Charles would meet up on July 11. They had nothing planned. On the morning of July 11, Charles texted Adam, “Al is here. At Lori’s.” This was shocking to Adam. He responded, “Really..I wonder why he never called me back.”
11:12 a.m. Charles says he still loves Lori. We see more texts back and forth between Adam and Charles.
11:11 a.m. Adam knew Charles was going to take JJ to school. He mentions having a second recording device to make sure they caught Lori talking. “It seems like Charles was just desperate, and this was a last-ditch effort to shake Lori loose of this spell she was under.”
11:10 a.m. At 1:13 p.m., Charles lets Adam knows his flights are booked. Charles expresses concern that Lori will be highly suspicious. Adam says when Charles tried to serve Lori with divorce papers, she disappeared and nobody knew where she went. Charles was concerned that Lori might take off again. “She was flighty,” Adam says.
11:09 a.m. Another text mentions Zac and Brandon. Zac and Brandon played basketball with Adam and Holmes, the stake president. So Adam was thinking that maybe Brandon could help.
11:08 a.m. In the texts, Adam talks about always being on record “to have proof for Holmes.” Holmes was the stake president.
11:06 a.m. The texts show some back and forth between Charles and Adam about their travel arrangements. At 9:11 a.m. on July 9, Charles messaged Adam wondering how they could all get together without her knowing about the intervention. Adam said he would go see Lori and record her without her knowing.
11:05 a.m. Judge overrules the objection and lets the texts in. We see the text messages appear on the screen. Adam knew Charles had reached out to Lori about the fake email from Chad. He also remembers Charles reaching out to Tammy Daybell.
11:04 a.m. Treena Kay moves to admit text messages from the morning of July 11. Lori objects – saying it’s a report and not an extraction.
11 a.m. We are now streaming video from the courtroom
here.
10:59 a.m. Charles had planned to pick up JJ and take him to school. Adam says Charles and JJ were very close.
10:59 a.m. Adam ended up staying at his mom and dad’s house. He did not see Charles or Lori on July 10. His parents picked them up, they went to lunch and then hung out at the house. At the time, Zac was living with Adam’s mom and dad.
10:58 a.m. Adam thought it was very strange and bizarre that Alex was not responding. Alex never texted or called Adam back.
10:57 a.m. Adam reached out to Alex and asked if he could stay with him. Alex said that would be fine. Adam flew into Phoenix on July 10. Adam ended up not staying with Alex. When he landed in Phoenix, it was around lunchtime. Adam texted Adam as soon as he landed. Alex did not respond. That was unusual. Adam tried to call Alex. He did not answer. That was unusual. “At first I was like, he can’t be that busy. He knows I’m coming.”
10:56 a.m. The point of the recording/intervention was to take away Lori’s temple recommend. Charles spoke with Adam about flying him to Arizona to help with the intervention. Charles offered to buy the plane ticket. Lori and his parents lived in Arizona, so did Alex and Summer.
10:55 a.m. Adam spoke with Charles about going to Lori’s and recording her on the phone. Charles and Adam talked about having a family dinner to play for the stake president. There are wards and 4-5 wards are in a stake and then there is a president of the stake, Adam says. It’s someone who is high up in the church.
10:54 a.m. Adam spoke with Charles about having an intervention. “Charles was desperate because nobody in our family would talk to him. I’m sure Lori had told people in our family not to talk to him, so he thought having an intervention would be getting in front of her, recording her, giving it to the stake president, and having him hear the crazy things he was saying.” The intervention was a way to get her back to the mainstream LDS beliefs. Charles asked Adam to help him.
10:53 a.m. Charles thought Lori was going overboard and was attending the temple five times a week. “She was going a little off the wall so he figured that if she got her temple recommend taken away from her, she would come back to normal.”
10:52 a.m. After seeing the emails, Adam believed Lori was having an affair with Chad Daybell. Adam and Charles talked about it. In the courtroom, Lori is taking notes.
10:51 a.m. At the end of June 2019, Adam reviewed an email Charles got about Chad coming to Arizona to write a book about him. Adam knew Charles played minor league baseball. In the email, a person pretending to be Charles asked about writing a book about his career. Adam says Charles was not interested in a book.
10:50 a.m. Adam tried to tell his family about what Lori was saying. One reaction was that Lori was in a delusion and she will come out of it at some point. “They basically cut me off,” Adam says, referring to his family.
10:49 a.m. When asked if he confronted Lori about the beliefs, Adam says, “I just let her say what she wanted to say.” Adam said to Lori, “I don’t know if you’re crazy but what you’re saying is not real.” Lori then stopped talking to Adam.
10:48 a.m. Adam says Lori told him she had more priesthood authority than the priesthood. Treena asks Adam to explain what that means. “In our religion, the men hold the priesthood and she said she was in a state where she’s above that. I didn’t quite understand it but it was very strange.”
10:47 a.m. Treena asks if Adam ever talked to Charles about why he and Lori were having marital problems. He says yes. Treena asks if Lori had beliefs outside of what is accepted by the LDS religion. He says yes. “Lori told me she was in the process of translating from a mortal human being to an immortal human being – a celestial state.” Treena asks if the LDS religion supports that. Adam says he has not heard of that happening on earth.
10:46 a.m. Treena asks if Lori worked prior to marrying Charles. She was a hairstylist. After she married Charles, she didn’t work. Charles worked so Lori could take care of the kids “for the most part.”
10:45 a.m. People in the family were on Charles’ cell phone plan, according to Adam. Isn’t sure about car insurance. Adam says Charles sold insurance. “He was doing something with school teachers and helping them with their situation.” Charles traveled a lot for work.
10:44 a.m. Treena asks what it means to be excommunicated. Adam says it’s when the church takes away certain things from members and you are no longer able to go the temple. Adam says he and Charles texted and talked on the phone.
10:43 a.m. Treena asks if Charles and Alex were close. He says normal brother-in-law, brother type of relationship. Their family often did big events where everyone came together. Adam grew up a member of the LDS Church. He is still a member. Alex was excommunicated twice, Adam says. He isn’t sure of the dates but it was when he was an adult.
10:42 a.m. Treena asks if Alex and Lori were close. “I don’t know if close is the word I would use. Just normal brother-sister relationship,” he responds. “Over the 4-5 years they were closer. They were close for like a year and a half. They became oddly close for a while.”
10:41 a.m. In 2019, Lori and Charles had JJ and Tylee living with them. Treena asks if they always lived in Arizona. Adam says no – they lived in Texas and Hawaii. Treena asks Adam if he was close with his brother Alex “Al.” He says somewhat.
10:40 a.m. Adam’s son Zac lived with Charles and Lori. Charles had two sons from a prior marriage before Lori. They never lived with Lori or Charles but visited, according to Adam.
10:39 a.m. Adam points out that his sister is at the defense table. In July 2019, Lori was married to Charles. He believes they were married over ten years. Adam says after Charles died, Lori married Chad. Lori had Colby and Tylee from a prior marriage before Charles.
10:38 a.m. Adam says Lori and Summer were close. Treena asks how Melanie Boudreaux is related to the family. She is Stacy’s daughter – so Adam’s niece.
10:37 a.m. Adam is a professional pickleball coach. He was a radio morning show host and lived in Wichita. Treena Kay asks Adam where he grew up. Southern California. Adam says he has four siblings: Stacy, Alex, Lori, and Summer.
10:34 a.m. Video from the courtroom will be available in 25 minutes
here.
10:36 a.m. Jury is in the courtroom. Treena Kay goes to get the next witness: Adam Cox. Lori’s brother.
10:33 a.m. It appears every single seat in the courtroom is full other than 4-5 on the row directly behind the defense. Those are reserved for family members.
10:31 a.m. We are waiting on the jury. Judge calls Lori, her attorneys and the prosecution to his bench to discuss scheduling for the second trial – the one involving Brandon Boudreaux.
10:30 a.m. Judge asks if anyone has an issue starting at 10 a.m. on Monday and Tuesday. The judge who is normally in this courtroom does not have any hearings. Nobody opposes so we will be starting early on Monday and Tuesday.
10:28 a.m. Judge Beresky is on the bench. Lori just walked in wearing a black business suit. Colby is staring at his mom. She has not looked back and likely does not know he is here.
10:24 a.m. Treena Kay and Det. Nathan Duncan are in the courtroom. Lori’s advisory attorneys are here. Lori has not yet arrived.
10:22 a.m. The judge’s assistant just reminded the audience to not talk and keep things quiet. She asks everyone to turn off their cell phones. Every public seat in the courtroom is full.
10:20 a.m. In the courtroom. Colby Ryan is here in the audience sitting next to Kay Woodcock. This will be the first time Colby sees his mother in person since he testifed in her Idaho trial two years ago. When he walked in the courtroom that day in Idaho, Lori looked over and mouthed, “My baby.”
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