Lori Vallow Wants To Go On Trial For Kids' Murders Alongside Husband Chad Daybell

Lori Vallow has indicated that she would like to stand trial alongside her husband, even if that delays her case.

In a court filing on Thursday, her lawyers stated that she does not object to going to trial alongside her current husband Chad Daybell. That would push her trial from October of this year until January of 2023, KTVB reports.

Both Lori Vallow, 48, and Chad Daybell, 53, have been charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder for the deaths of her children Tylee Ryan, 16, and Joshua “JJ” Vallow, 7, according to court records. The children’s remains were discovered in June 2020 on an Idaho property belonging to Daybell, according to Rexburg Police. 

“She understands her right to a speedy trial, and does not want to waive that right,” attorneys Jim Archibald and John Thomas said in a filing on Thursday, KSAZ reports. “If the Court moves her trial from October 11, 2022, to January 9, 2023, she understands that will give her defense team more time to get ready.”

The filing also states that she told her counsel not to file for a separate trial. It claims that her mental health is “complex and fragile.”

Last month, nearly a year after she was deemed mentally unfit to stand trial, a judge declared her competent following months of treatment in a mental health facility. She appeared in court for her arraignment on April 19, but stood silent when asked to enter a plea. The judge entered not guilty pleas to all charges on her behalf.  

Daybell entered his plea of not guilty last June.

Vallow's two children had been missing since September 2019, a few months after JJ's father, Charles Vallow (Lori's fourth husband), was killed. Lori Vallow’s brother, Alex Cox, fatally shot Charles in July at the Arizona home where Lori and her children were living following the couple's split. Cox said the killing was in self-defense, and he was never charged. He died in December 2019 from what medical authorities concluded was a pulmonary embolism.

Lori Vallow was indicted in June 2021 on one count of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in Charles Vallow's death. She has yet to enter a plea in that case.

Vallow and Daybell, a religious doomsday author, had allegedly adopted a bizarre set of religious beliefs before her children vanished. Vallow’s friend, Melanie Gibb, told investigators that Vallow had become convinced that many of her family members — including JJ and Tylee — were “zombies,” according to a probable cause statement previously obtained by Oxygen.com.