Lori Vallow, the Idaho mother accused of killing her two children, was indicted by a grand jury this week of conspiring with her brother to kill her estranged former husband, Charles Vallow.
The indictment, unsealed Tuesday in Maricopa County, Arizona, is the latest in a series of killings believed to be perpetrated by the doomsday-obsessed mother and her new husband, Chad Daybell, shortly before the couple fled to Hawaii.
The couple had already been charged in the killings of 8-year-old Joshua Vallow and 17-year-old Tylee Ryan, who were reported missing by relatives in 2019. The couple had told police the children were staying with friends in Arizona, but authorities would go on to find the remains of two children in Daybell's Idaho home.
Daybell was also charged in the killing of his former wife Tammy Daybell, who died a month before he married Lori Vallow.
According to the newly unsealed grand jury indictment, Vallow is now also facing charges of conspiring to kill her former husband with her brother, Alexander Cox, in July 2019.
According to the indictment, the two agreed "at least one of them or another would engage in conduct consisting the offense of First Degree Murder."
On July 11, 2019, Cox called 911 and reported that he had shot Charles Vallow in self-defense, killing him.
It was months later, in November 2019, that family members would contact police to report the two children missing.
Then in December 2019, Cox died. According to local reports, he was found passed out on the bathroom floor by the son of his new wife. An autopsy report listed no signs of trauma and "no suspicious compounds" on or in his body, and he was determined to have died from blood clots and heart failure.
Vallow, who was reportedly connected to a group called "Preparing a People" —described by relatives as a cult centered on the belief that the end of the world and the second coming of Christ were imminent — had been in a contentious custody battle with her former husband.
CNN reported her former husband had cited her mental health as a concern in court records, saying that she had become "obsessed about near-death experiences and spiritual visions."
Vallow and Daybell's religious beliefs allegedly played a role in the string of killings they are now accused of. KPNX reported Daybell had texted Vallow at one point claiming that his then-wife was "being possessed by a spirit."
In May, a psychologist found Vallow was not competent to face trial, which prosecutors said they would fight in court.
Correction: Charles Vallow was Lori Vallow's fourth husband. A previous version of this story misstated when they were married.