Who's who in Lori Vallow Daybell's trial in Arizona?

PHOENIX (AP) — The case of Lori Vallow Daybell took investigators from Arizona to Idaho and Hawaii to unravel a twisted plot built on bizarre claims that evil spirits possessed her family.

She already is serving three life sentences in Idaho for murdering her two youngest children and conspiring to kill her lover's wife.

Now, she faces another life sentence after an Arizona jury on Tuesday found Vallow Daybell guilty of conspiring with her brother to kill her estranged husband, Charles Vallow.

Prosecutors say she was after money from a life insurance policy. They also contend doomsday prophecies peddled by her boyfriend and soon-to-be husband Chad Daybell played a role in Vallow's 2019 death in metro Phoenix.

Vallow Daybell says her brother Alex acted in self-defense, and that Vallow's death wasn't a crime but a tragedy.

Jurors deliberated for about three hours over two days. Vallow Daybell, who isn't a lawyer, represented herself in the case and didn’t call any witnesses or put on any evidence in her defense.

Here’s a look at some of the people connected to the case:

Vallow Daybell, 51, a beautician by trade and mother of three, has been married five times.

She married her high school sweetheart when she was 19. It ended quickly, but she married again in her early 20s and had a son. With her third husband, Joseph Ryan, she had a daughter. That ended after a few years, and Ryan later died in his home of a suspected heart attack.

In the summer of 2019, her fourth husband — Charles Vallow — was shot to death by her brother.

That's when she moved with her daughter, Tylee Ryan, and younger son, Joshua “JJ” Vallow, to southeastern Idaho, where she could be closer to Chad. That September, the children disappeared, and prosecutors said Chad and his wife at the time, Tammy Daybell, applied to increase Tammy’s life insurance benefit.

Tammy died the next month, and Chad Daybell and Vallow Daybell got married two weeks later. Authorities grew suspicious about Tammy's death and had her body exhumed for an autopsy, which determined she died of asphyxiation. The children’s bodies were found in 2020, buried in Chad Daybell’s yard.

During her sentencing, Vallow Daybell said “accidental deaths happen.” She claimed the spirits of the three victims visited her regularly and were all happy in the “spirit world.”

In Arizona, she will be sentenced for her role in Vallow's death after she again goes on trial, which is scheduled for later this year. She is charged in that case with conspiring to murder Brandon Boudreaux, the ex-husband of Vallow Daybell’s niece. Boudreaux survived the attempt.

Charles Vallow, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, entered the picture several months after Vallow Daybell and Joseph Ryan divorced. Vallow Daybell joined the faith — commonly known as the Mormon church — and the two married in 2006. They later adopted “JJ” Vallow.

The marriage soured by 2019. Charles filed for divorce, saying in court papers that Vallow Daybell believed herself to be a deity tasked with helping usher in the biblical apocalypse.

The two were estranged but still married when Vallow Daybell’s brother, Alex Cox, shot and killed Charles outside his suburban Phoenix home. Cox told police the shooting was in self-defense and was never charged in the case. He died months later of a blood clot in his lungs.

Chad Daybell, 56, married Tammy Daybell in 1990. They had five kids and a home in rural southeastern Idaho. He also was a member of the Mormon church and loosely crafted his works of fiction on its teachings.

Prosecutors have said that Chad Daybell met Vallow Daybell at a conference in Utah in 2018. Chad insisted they had been married in several previous lives and that she was a “sexual goddess” who would help him save the world. The couple led a group of friends in trying to cast out evil spirits by praying and doing what they called “energy work," prosecutors said.

They believed a person could become a zombie in some cases, and the only way to banish a zombie was to kill the person, friends said. One friend told police she heard Vallow Daybell call the children zombies before they disappeared.

Idaho jurors convicted Chad in 2024 in the triple-murder plot. They deliberated just over a day before sentencing him to death.

Friends of Cox and Vallow Daybell testified in 2023 that the siblings were very close and that Cox believed he was put on Earth to serve as her protector.

During Vallow Daybell’s trial in Idaho, prosecutors presented witnesses and evidence that appeared to tie Cox to the deaths, including GPS data on his phone that was traced to where the children’s bodies were found.

Cox's wife, Zulema Pastenes, testified that her husband also believed people could be possessed and become zombies. She said Cox called himself the “fall guy” after learning that Tammy's body was being exhumed, but he didn't elaborate.

Adam Cox, 56, and one of Vallow Daybell’s four siblings, testified at her Arizona trial on behalf of the prosecution.

Cox was living in Wichita, Kansas, at the time of the alleged crime. Cox and Vallow had planned an intervention to bring Vallow Daybell back into the mainstream of their shared faith in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints before Vallow was killed.

Cox said Vallow Daybell told people that Vallow was no longer living and that a zombie was inside his body.

Cox, a morning radio host at the time, traveled to the Phoenix area for the intervention. He was supposed to stay with his brother Alex, but Alex didn’t respond to his calls or texts. He later learned that Alex was staying at Vallow Daybell’s home, leading Adam to become suspicious his siblings were planning something.

Alex Cox claimed he acted in self-defense when he fatally shot Vallow. Cox died five months later from what medical examiners said was a blood clot in his lungs.

The intervention never occurred. Adam Cox said he learned of Vallow’s death about two days after from a friend who found out online.

Kay Woodcock is Vallow's sister and JJ’s grandmother. She testified in the Arizona trial.

In 2019, she persuaded police in Idaho to check on JJ after her regular phone calls and visits with the boy stopped. A search for JJ and Tylee ensued, with police asking for the public's help and the Woodcock family creating a website where people could leave tips. A reward also was offered.

Charles Vallow adopted JJ as a baby because the boy's biological parents were unable to care for him.

In the Idaho proceedings, Woodcock told jurors that JJ was born with some disabilities and was diagnosed with autism. After Charles died, Woodcock feared Vallow Daybell no longer wanted the boy. She also worried that JJ may had witnessed his father’s death.

Lori Vallow Daybell's uncle Rex Conner stands outside of Maricopa County Courthouse as he attends the Arizona murder trial of Vallow Daybell, who's charged with conspiring to murder her estranged husband, Monday, April 21, 2025, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

Colby Ryan arrives at Maricopa County Superior Court for the murder trial of Lori Vallow Daybell, his mother, who's charged with conspiring to murder her estranged husband, Monday, April 21, 2025, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

FILE - Larry Woodcock speaks to media members at the Rexburg Standard Journal Newspaper in Rexburg, Idaho on Jan. 7, 2020, while holding a reward flyer for Joshua Vallow and Tylee Ryan. (John Roark/The Idaho Post-Register via AP, File)

FILE - Kay Woodcock, center, and Larry Woodcock, right, address the media outside court at a hearing for Lori Vallow Daybell on Friday, March 6, 2020, in Rexburg, Idaho. (John Roark/The Idaho Post-Register via AP, Pool)

FILE - Chad Daybell sits at the defense table after the jury's verdict in his murder trial was read at the Ada County Courthouse in Boise, Idaho, on Thursday, May 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Kyle Green, Pool, File)

FILE - Lori Vallow Daybell talks with her lawyers before the jury's verdict is read at the Ada County Courthouse in Boise, Idaho on May 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Kyle Green, File)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Nationwide protests challenging Iran’s theocracy reached the two-week mark Sunday, as the death toll in violence surrounding the demonstrations reached at least 116 people killed, activists said.

With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. But the death toll in the protests has grown to at least 116 and over 2,600 others detained, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. The agency has been accurate in multiple rounds of previous unrest in Iran.

Iranian state TV is reporting on security force casualties while portraying control over the nation, without discussing dead demonstrators, whom it increasingly refers to as “terrorists." However, it also acknowledged protests went on into Sunday morning, with demonstrations in Tehran and in the holy city of Mashhad to the northeast.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has signaled a coming clampdown, despite U.S. warnings. Tehran escalated its threats Saturday, with the Iran’s attorney general, Mohammad Movahedi Azad, warning that anyone taking part in protests will be considered an “enemy of God,” a death-penalty charge. The statement carried by Iranian state television said even those who “helped rioters” would face the charge.

“Prosecutors must carefully and without delay, by issuing indictments, prepare the grounds for the trial and decisive confrontation with those who, by betraying the nation and creating insecurity, seek foreign domination over the country,” the statement read. “Proceedings must be conducted without leniency, compassion or indulgence.”

U.S. President Donald Trump offered support for the protesters, saying on social media that “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!” The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, reporting citing anonymous U.S. officials, said on Saturday night that Trump had been given military options for a strike on Iran, but hadn't made a final decision.

The State Department separately warned: “Do not play games with President Trump. When he says he’ll do something, he means it.”

Saturday marked the start of the work week in Iran, but many schools and universities reportedly held online classes, Iranian state TV reported. Internal Iranian government websites are believed to be functioning.

State TV repeatedly played a driving, martial orchestral arrangement from the “Epic of Khorramshahr” by Iranian composer Majid Entezami, while showing pro-government demonstrations. The song, aired repeatedly during the 12-day war launched by Israel, honors Iran's 1982 liberation of the city of Khorramshahr during the Iran-Iraq war. It has been used in videos of protesting women cutting away their hair to protest the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini as well.

It also repeatedly aired video of purported protesters shooting at security forces with firearms.

In one online video verified by The Associated Press, protesters demonstrated Friday in northern Tehran's Saadat Abad area, with what appeared to be thousands on the street.

“Death to Khamenei!” a man chanted.

The semiofficial Fars news agency, believed to be close to Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and one of the few media outlets able to publish to the outside world, released surveillance camera footage of what it said came from demonstrations in Isfahan. In it, a protester appeared to fire a long gun, while others set fires and threw gasoline bombs at what appeared to be a government compound.

The Young Journalists' Club, associated with state TV, reported that protesters killed three members of the Guard’s all-volunteer Basij force in the city of Gachsaran. It also reported a security official was stabbed to death in Hamadan province, a police officer killed in the port city of Bandar Abbas and another in Gilan, as well as one person slain in Mashhad.

The semiofficial Tasnim news agency, also close to the Guard, claimed authorities detained nearly 200 people belonging to what it described as “operational terrorist teams.” It alleged those arrested had weapons including firearms, grenades and gasoline bombs.

State television also aired footage of a funeral service attended by hundreds in Qom, a Shiite seminary city just south of Tehran.

Iran’s theocracy cut off the nation from the internet and international telephone calls on Thursday, though it allowed some state-owned and semiofficial media to publish. Qatar's state-funded Al Jazeera news network reported live from Iran, but they appeared to be the only major foreign outlet able to work.

Iran's exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who called for protests Thursday and Friday, asked in his latest message for demonstrators to take to the streets Saturday and Sunday. He urged protesters to carry Iran's old lion-and-sun flag and other national symbols used during the time of the shah to “claim public spaces as your own.”

Pahlavi's support of and from Israel has drawn criticism in the past — particularly after the 12-day war. Demonstrators have shouted in support of the shah in some protests, but it isn’t clear whether that’s support for Pahlavi himself or a desire to return to a time before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Online video purported to show protests ongoing Saturday night as well.

The demonstrations began Dec. 28 over the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, which trades at over 1.4 million to $1, as the country's economy is squeezed by international sanctions in part levied over its nuclear program. The protests intensified and grew into calls directly challenging Iran's theocracy.

Airlines have canceled some flights into Iran over the demonstrations. Austrian Airlines said Saturday it had decided to suspend its flights to Iran “as a precautionary measure” through Monday. Turkish Airlines earlier announced the cancellation of 17 flights to three cities in Iran.

Meanwhile, concern is growing that the internet shutdown will allow Iran's security forces to go on a bloody crackdown, as they have in other rounds of demonstrations. Ali Rahmani, the son of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi who is imprisoned in Iran, noted that security forces killed hundreds in a 2019 protest “so we can only fear the worst.”

“They are fighting, and losing their lives, against a dictatorial regime,” Rahmani said.

Associated Press writers Oleg Cetinic in Paris and Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed to this report.

In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran showed protesters once again taking to the streets of Tehran despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Saturday Jan. 10, 2026. (UGC via AP)

In this frame grab from video obtained by the AP outside Iran, a masked demonstrator holds a picture of Iran's Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, January. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)

In this frame grab from video taken by an individual not employed by The Associated Press and obtained by the AP outside Iran shows a fire as people protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)

In this frame grab from video taken by an individual not employed by The Associated Press and obtained by the AP outside Iran shows people during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)

This frame grab from a video released Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, by Iranian state television shows a man holding a device to document burning vehicles during a night of mass protests in Zanjan, Iran. (Iranian state TV via AP)