Idaho "Doomsday mum" Lori Vallow Daybell already sits in a jail with three consecutive life sentences.
Last year, she was convicted of killing her two youngest children and conspiring to kill a former romantic rival — her fifth husband's previous wife, Tammy Daybell.
Dubbed the Vallow-Daybell doomsday murders, the bizarre case followed Vallow Daybell and her fifth husband, Chad Daybell, a self-published writer of doomsday-focused fiction loosely based on Mormon teaching who was sentenced to death for the three murders.
The pair made headlines after prosecutors argued the couple justified the killings by creating an apocalyptic belief system that people could be possessed by evil spirits and turned into "zombies", and that the only way to save a possessed person's soul was for the possessed body to die.
This week, the case took a further turn as Vallow-Daybell was found competent to stand trial on additional changes of conspiring to kill her estranged husband Charles Vellow and her niece's ex-husband.
So what exactly is going on?
Missing children raise first alarm bells
Local police were first alerted to the case in October 2019 when an extended family member became worried that Vallow Daybell's children, seven-year-old Joshua "JJ" Vallow and his 17-year-old sister Tylee Ryan, had not been seen in an extended period of time.
The family member said that their mother would not give a straight answer about where they were.
In June 2020, investigators announced they found human remains while searching Daybell's property in rural Idaho — and the bodies belonged to JJ and Tylee.
Tylee's DNA was later found on a pickaxe and shovel in a shed on the property, and JJ's body was wrapped in trash bags and duct tape, prosecutors have said.
At the Fremont County Courthouse in St Anthony, Idaho, Judge Steven W Boyce said the search for the missing children, the discovery of their bodies and the evidence photos shown in court left law enforcement and jurors traumatised, and he would never be able to get images of the slain children out of his head.
Murder of two prior spouses in mysterious circumstances
As police investigated the two missing children, many began to become transfixed by the mysterious deaths of their former spouses.
Vallow Daybell's fourth husband, Charles Vallow, was shot and killed in 2019 by Vallow Daybell's brother, who told police he acted in self-defence and was never charged.
At the time, Vallow Daybell was already in a relationship with Chad Daybell and had moved from Phoenix to Idaho to be closer to him.
Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow married in November 2019, about two weeks after his previous wife, Tammy, was killed.
Tammy Daybell initially was described as having died of natural causes, but an autopsy later showed she had been asphyxiated, authorities said.
Husband and wife now both sentenced in spouse deaths
In May 2023, Vallow Daybell was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences in prison, with no chance of parole, after she was found guilty of killing her two youngest children and conspiring to kill Tammy Daybell.
At the time, she had not been charged for the murder of Charles Vallow.
Less than a year later, in June 2024, a jury in Idaho unanimously agreed that Daybell deserved the death penalty for for the murders of Tammy and the two children.
Prosecutors in the Idaho case called dozens of witnesses to bolster their claims that Chad and Vallow Daybell conspired to kill the three to eliminate any obstacles to their relationship and for the survivor benefits and life insurance.
The court heard Tammy Daybell's body was also found bruised, suggesting she fought back as she was asphyxiated in her bed.
During a nearly two-month-long trial, prosecutors said Daybell promoted unusual spiritual beliefs including apocalyptic prophecies and tales of possession by evil spirits in order to justify the killings.
On Thursday, two court-appointed doctors in Arizona deemed Vallow Daybell fit to face charges of conspiring to kill her estranged husband, Charles Vallow, and a niece's ex-spouse, Brandon Boudreaux.
Police say Vallow Daybell's brother shot at Mr Boudreaux in October 2019 during the murder of Charles Vallow.
Charles Vallow was JJ's father.
A Maricopa County Superior Court judge tentatively set Vallow Daybell's trial for February next year.
ABC/AP
