u003cstrongu003eAttorney Mark Means has accused special counsel Robert Wood of witness tampering based on recordings of conversations with Vallow’s sister and sister-in-lawu003c/strongu003e

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“Doomsday mom” Lori Vallow's criminal defense attorney has called for the disqualification and removal of the Idaho special prosecutor overseeing the case against her for conspiring to hide the bodies of her two children, Fox 10 Phoenix reports. 

Lori Vallow’s lawyer, Mark Means, claims special counsel Robert Wood committed prosecutorial misconduct through witness tampering and should therefore be disqualified. Means is calling for a criminal prosecution of the man who seeks to put Lori Vallow behind bars, after she allegedly conspired with her husband Chad Daybell to conceal the bodies of her two children, Tylee Ryan, 17, and JJ Vallow, seven.

It's the latest twist in a murky saga: the children are believed to have died — or been killed — on two separate nights in September 2019. Authorities got wind they were missing about two months later and launched a massive search, all while Vallow and Daybell said the kids were safe. Finally, detectives dug up the children’s remains on Chad Daybell’s property in Salem, Idaho, in June and arrested him. (Lori had been arrested in February on child abandonment charges.) Based on cell phone location data, investigators believe that Vallow’s brother, Alex Cox, transported the children’s bodies for burial from the apartment complex in Rexburg, Idaho, where he and his sister started renting homes at the beginning of September 2019. Cox went on to die of an apparent blood clot almost exactly a year ago.

Means has filed court documents in Idaho calling for the special prosecutor’s disqualification based on an October 2020 recording of a conversation between Wood and Lori Vallow’s sister, Summer Shiflet. This recording recently surfaced along with a recording from about that time between the prosecutor and the woman who married Cox shortly before his demise, Zulema Pastenes.

In court documents, Means accused Wood of violating Vallow's due process rights by engaging in what Means describes as "coercive, unduly influence, coaching, and intimidating tactics" to manipulate material witness or witnesses to the case.

Lori Vallow's lawyer asking for prosecutor to be disqualified, alleging witness tampering
KSAZ Phoenix

Lori Vallow’s attorney also called for the prosecutor’s disqualification because, he alleged in the court documents, Wood violated professional rules.

Beyond the calls for disqualification, Means alleged that the prosecutor seeking to imprison his client, Lori Vallow, committed criminal acts according to laws prohibiting witness tampering and intimidation.

Means filed the motion to disqualify the prosecutor in Lori Vallow’s case — which was recently combined with Daybell’s, anticipating a joint jury trial next year — on December 15 with the District court of the Seventh Judicial District of the State of Idaho.

Lori Vallow’s history is a tangle of mysterious deaths, divorces, torrid affairs and recriminations. Daybell is her fifth husband; they wed in November 2019 following an affair that began the previous year. The previous month, his wife of 29 years, Tammy Daybell, died mysteriously at their home. And the previous July, Alex Cox shot Lori’s fourth husband, Charles Vallow, in Phoenix in what he claimed was self-defense. Lori’s third husband, Joseph Ryan, died in April 2018, also in Phoenix, of what was reported as a heart attack. However, local police recently began re-investigating the death. 

According to Idaho court documents, attorney Mark L. Means claims Wood "has committed prosecutorial misconduct" by coaching witness Summer Shiflet (Lori's biological sister) in obtained audio.

Lori Vallow Daybell attorney files motion to disqualify special prosecutor
KBOI Boise

CBS 2 Idaho News reports that the court documents that Means filed seeking the disqualification of the special prosecutor in Lori and Chad Daybell’s joint case stated regarding Wood’s conversation with Vallow’s sister, "The recording clearly illustrates Mr. Wood’s attempt to coerce, unduly influence, coach, and or intimidate said material witness to this case." 

According to the filing from Lori Vallow’s attorney, the prosecutor should be disqualified for violating his client’s rights by "discussing matters that support the state’s position of the case" with Cox’s widow, KATU 2 ABC reports.

Means has further requested permission from the court to include this recording in an upcoming pre-trial hearing.

Lost in the buzz about the Vallow case is the fact that she, Daybell, Cox and her niece, Melani Pawlowski, all broke off with their previous partners, or wound up with those individuals dead, and then swiftly married new partners during the months leading to November 2019. They are all believed to be a part of a doomsday cult and were preparing to lead the true believers to salvation come Armageddon, which Chad, a cult evangelist, believed would occur in June 2020. 

Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow Daybell are facing charges in connection to the deaths of Lori's children J.J. Vallow and Tylee Ryan.

Lori Vallow Daybell attorney files motion to disqualify special prosecutor
KATU Portland

KREM 2’s One Foot in the Grave podcast has dropped a four-part deep dive into the complexities of the Vallow-Daybell case.

While Lori Vallow’s attorney is busy trying to get the prosecutor in her case disqualified, KREM 2 journalists Jen York and Taylor Viydo have been doing their own investigating.

Part 1 asks the question: Who is Lori Vallow? Part 2 asks the same about Chad Daybell.

Part 3 focuses on the case’s henchmen.

One Foot in the Grave Episode 4: What happens next for Lori Vallow?

Listen to 'One Foot in the Grave': A KREM 2 podcast about the Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell story
KREM2

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