Juror reflects on Lori Vallow Daybell’s guilty verdict, trial

PHOENIX — It’s been almost a week since a jury found Lori Vallow Daybell guilty of conspiring to kill her former husband, Charles Vallow.

The jury reached a unanimous guilty verdict in about three hours.  

On that jury was Tass Reed-Tucker, juror number 8.

“I’ve never been through anything like this,” Reed-Tucker shared in an interview with 12News.

Back in 2023, Vallow Daybell was convicted in Idaho for killing her children, Tylee and JJ, as well as her role in the death of her current husband, Chad Daybell’s first wife, Tammy. She was sentenced to three life sentences in that state. 

The jury did not learn about Vallow Daybell’s prior convictions in this trial, but got an earful once they were released from the trial by the judge, and journalists rushed to ask questions as they left the courthouse.

“The second I started talking…I was like a sizzling piece of steak,” Reed-Tucker recalled. “It was insane.”

Reed-Tucker said they wondered about the rest of Vallow Daybell’s family during deliberations.

“Once we reached deliberation, it came up like, ‘Why didn’t she have Tylee? Why didn’t she have her other kids? Her family?'” Reed-Tucker stated.  “She just didn’t have anyone. So we were kind of questioning what happened there, but we couldn’t ask anyone at the same time, you know, because we’re in deliberation.”

“What did you make of her not presenting a defense?” asked the I-Team’s Erica Stapleton.

“That she didn’t have anyone on her side,” Reed-Tucker said. “No one wanted to defend her.”

The prosecution laid out its case, saying that Vallow Daybell conspired with her brother, Alex Cox, to kill her husband, Charles Vallow, back in July 2019. Cox shot and killed Charles Vallow at Lori’s rental home when he came to take their son, JJ, to school.  

The couple was estranged and not living together at the time of Charles Vallow’s death.

Alex Cox can’t be charged in this case because he died in December 2019.

Vallow Daybell, who represented herself at trial, told the jury it was self-defense. 

“I think in the beginning it was a little bit iffy, shaky, because she had to keep being corrected of how she was talking,” Reed-Tucker shared. “But throughout it, I think she did a pretty good job at representing herself.”

Vallow Daybell’s demeanor stood out, Reed-Tucker said.

“She smirked at us and rolled her eyes and shook her head,” Reed-Tucker remembered. “[She] just came off that she didn’t really care about it.”

Key witnesses stood out, too, like Vallow Daybell’s other brother, Adam Cox, and Charles Vallow’s sister, Kay Woodcock.

“I think she went into that hoping they were going to crack or be on her side,” Reed-Tucker said. “And that was not the case. And they stood their ground pretty well.”

Reed-Tucker felt Vallow Daybell tried to bring up some good points on cross-examination, like Vallow Daybell questioning a Chandler detective on why they didn’t run certain tests on some evidence in the case, like the gun or a bat.  The detective told the court he didn’t think further testing was necessary on these items.

“It stood out because we didn’t know that he didn’t test any of the evidence with what we thought he should have,” Reed-Tucker said.

For Reed-Tucker, this experience helped shape a future career in criminal justice. They plan to follow Vallow Daybell’s next trial in Arizona, where she’s accused of conspiring to kill her niece’s ex-husband.

“Not being on jury and just being on the other side,” they said.

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