L. Charles Anthony Vallow

On the morning of July 11, 2019, L. Charles Anthony Vallow, a 62-year-old White man from Texas, went to a home in Chandler, Arizona, to pick up his son. The residence was where his estranged wife, Lori Vallow, was living with her two children. An argument between Charles and Lori escalated, and Lori’s brother, Alex Cox, who was also in the home, intervened. The confrontation turned into a physical fight between the two men, ending when Cox shot Charles twice in the chest. Charles was declared dead at the scene.

When police arrived, Alex Cox claimed he had acted in self-defense. He told investigators that during the fight, Charles had struck him in the head with a baseball bat, and he shot his brother-in-law in response. Cox called 911 after the shooting. He and Lori were questioned by police and released. At the time, no charges were filed, and the case was sent to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office for review.

As investigators delved deeper, the self-defense narrative began to unravel. They learned that in the months before his death, Charles had grown fearful of his wife’s increasingly extreme religious beliefs. Lori and her followers believed she was an exalted goddess on a mission to prepare for the end of the world and that they possessed extraordinary abilities. They came to believe Charles was possessed by a dark spirit they called "Hiplos" or "Ned." Text messages from June 2019, a month before the killing, showed Lori texting another person about Charles, stating, “Let’s go spiritually tonight and work on him… This is war.”

The investigation uncovered what authorities described as a planned event that was not a “coincidence or justifiable.” Lori’s other brother, Adam Cox, told detectives he believed “Lori and Alex murdered Charles,” citing a “whole pattern of things” in their family history. Alex Cox was never charged in connection with the shooting; he died of what a medical examiner ruled were natural causes on December 12, 2019.

In June 2021, a grand jury in Maricopa County, Arizona, indicted Lori Vallow Daybell on one count of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in the death of her fourth husband, Charles Vallow. The indictment alleges she agreed with her brother, Alex Cox, to cause Charles’s death. The case is one of several connected to Lori and her fifth husband, Chad Daybell, involving the deaths of her two children and Chad's former wife. As of that indictment, the case against Lori Vallow Daybell for her role in Charles Vallow's death was proceeding to trial.