After four failed marriages, that their father is being framed and that their mother died of asphyxiation.
“Asphyxiation doesn’t necessarily mean smothered,” Mark Daybell said. “According to my understanding, it just means the breath was interrupted. And in the end, she wasn’t able to breathe. And according to that, there’s more facts we need. We don’t just say, ‘Oh, well, bye, Chad.’ No there’s still love, there’s still connection.”
This is not Vallow’s only criminal case. She is also facing conspiracy to commit murder charges in Arizona in connection with her previous husband’s July 2019 death. Her brother, Cox, claimed he shot Charles Vallow in self-defense; Cox died of a blood clot on Dec. 12, 2019.
Experts say the prosecution does not need to prove the motive for the slayings, but without doing so, it may be hard to convince jurors that a mother planned the deaths of her own kids.
“The jury will want an explanation from the prosecution as to why she would kill her own children,” Ambrosio Rodriguez, a Los Angeles criminal defense attorney who is not connected to the case, told The Daily Beast. “A failure to do so might be problematic for the prosecution.”
But Rodriguez notes that the prosecution has amassed a lot of evidence against Vallow, who will have to explain how she could flee to Hawaii while her children were supposedly missing. Her behavior, Rodriguez said, “is a piece of evidence that will haunt her.”
Paitakes said the defense may try to lean into the fact that Vallow was deemed declared mentally unfit to stand trial for nearly a year before she was deemed “restored to competency and fit to proceed” last April.
“I think the mental competency issue is the best defense based on prior psychological exams which have gone back and forth,” Paitakes said.
Rodriguez said he would expect Vallow to take the stand in an attempt to convince the jury that she would never hurt her children.
“I expect her to testify and be crucified by the prosecution during cross-examination,” he added. “This case will be a roller coaster.”
