Lori Vallow's Arizona trial pushed back to 2025; defense needs more time
PHOENIX - The Arizona trial for Lori Vallow, the so-called "Doomsday Mom," has been pushed back until next year.
In a Maricopa County courtroom on July 2, Vallow waived her appearance for her status conference. Her defense says they are not close to being done reviewing the discovery in the case, which is about 15 terabytes of data.
Vallow is accused of conspiring in the fatal shooting of her fourth husband, Charles Vallow, and plotting the attempted murder of her niece's ex-husband, Brandon Boudreaux.
The two cases were investigated by Chandler and Gilbert Police. Investigators say Vallow and "doomsday fictional author," Chad Daybell, deemed the two victims as "dark spirits."
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Initially, the trial was scheduled for Aug. 1. On Tuesday, the judge decided to push the trial to Feb. 24, 2025, despite Vallow not waiving her right to a speedy trial.
Leading up to the status conference, Vallow's defense motioned to prevent cameras from filming this proceeding. Gerald Bradley told the judge FOX 10's coverage has "vilified and maligned" Lori Vallow, impacting her constitutional rights to a fair trial.
Bradley also says finding a jury pool will be a challenge due to all the media coverage.
FOX 10 Investigator Justin Lum stated the case to the judge, saying FOX 10 has only provided extensive and thorough reporting on this high-profile case.
"Especially if it’s a visual situation where it’s a photo or a video of Lori in court, it’s just maligning her, vilifying her for people in our jury pool to see and what they learn from that information is that she is such a terrible, evil character that she’s not even entitled to her constitutional rights," said Gerald Bradley, Vallow's public defender.
FOX 10 Investigator Justin Lum said in response, "I would say that Maricopa County has four and a half million people, it’s the fourth-largest county in the country. There was no issue finding a jury in Idaho for two trials in Idaho including Ms. Vallow’s husband, Chad Daybell. Ada County has about 500,000 people. If people want to know about this case, they can go on the internet. I don’t think FOX 10 Phoenix or any other media outlet here should be blamed or punished because we’ve covered a high-profile case."
The judge approved FOX 10's camera request to record the status conference that followed minutes later, but Vallow waived her appearance and was taken back to jail.
The next status conference for the trial is on Sept. 6.