PHOENIX — Through a conversation with one of the jurors, ABC15 is getting brand new insight into what went into the guilty verdict for Lori Daybell.
Last week, Daybell was convicted of conspiring to murder her fourth husband, Charles Vallow, inside his Chandler home in 2019. Her brother, Alex Cox, is the one who shot Vallow and admitted to pulling the trigger, but always claimed it was self-defense. In court, during her two-week trial, Daybell herself called it a "family tragedy," but in the end, the jury didn't believe her.
Prosecutors claimed a number of motives in the case, including Daybell being wrapped up in "doomsday" conspiracies.
ABC15's Nick Ciletti spoke with one of the jurors, Tass Reed-Tucker, about the jury's decision to convict.
"I never thought I'd be part of anything like this, let alone the biggest case ever," says Tass.
See daily recaps and get full coverage of Lori Daybell's trials here.
When it came to Daybell not calling any witnesses, Tass said she and the rest of the jury were "confused" by that, but said overall, she felt Daybell did a "pretty good job" representing herself in court. She said it was ultimately all the evidence the prosecution had presented that would lead the jury to render that guilty verdict: things like text messages, surveillance video, and the gun used in the crime, which Tass says the jurors were allowed to handle.
"There's a lot of feeling," Tass explains. "You're holding something used to kill someone. That's a lot of feelings going through your head."
But perhaps the most surprising was what the jury didn't know. After the trial had wrapped, the jurors had learned of Daybell's previous convictions in the deaths of her two children, JJ and Tylee.
"It was a lot," says Tass. "It's pretty intense...we didn't know any of this until it was all done."
It is just one piece of a puzzle that has included doomsday conspiracies, murder, and plenty of heartache along the way.
In the end, Tass had a simple message for the family of Charles Vallow: "I'm so sorry this happened to you, but I am glad you guys got justice."
Daybell will be back in court on May 14 for a hearing in her second Arizona trial. In that case, Daybell is accused of conspiring to kill her niece's ex-husband. She has pleaded not guilty. The trial is expected to begin at the end of May.
