Lori Vallow Daybell's phone calls. Karen Read's retrial set to start. And Houston's "lost boys".
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Who is Blayne Alexander and what is this episode about?
Welcome to Dateline True Crime Weekly. I'm Blayne Alexander, filling in today for Andrea, who's out on vacation this week. It's April 17th, and here's what's on our docket. In Massachusetts, a jury is seated for Karen Reid's highly anticipated retrial. Ahead of opening statements, we'll catch you up on what to watch out for this time around.
It was a huge challenge to seat a jury in a case that is as public and controversial as this one.
Other stories on our radar this week. We've got verdicts in two murder trials and a pivotal pretrial hearing in the case of the alleged Gilgo Beach serial killer.
Prosecutors hired a private lab to analyze those hair fibers using nuclear DNA.
What new evidence emerged in Lori Vallow Daybell's trial?
Plus, we're joined by author and investigative journalist Lisa Olson to talk about her new book on one of the deadliest serial killers in American history and the scientist who helped return his victims to their families. She took the police report home, she read it late at night, and she noticed names of kids who had been forgotten. But before all of that, we're heading back to Arizona, where Lori Vallow Daybell's trial for conspiring to murder her fourth husband continues, and so does the drama. For the past week, prosecutors have presented their theory of what happened on the morning of July 11th, 2019, when Lori Vallow Daybell's fourth husband, Charles Vallow, was shot and killed by her brother, Alex Cox.
They say that greed and betrayal motivated Lori to plot her husband's murder with her brother so she could collect $1 million in life insurance and be free to marry her lover, the self-proclaimed doomsday prophet, Chad Daybell. Lori, who's representing herself in court, has denied all of this, telling the jury that Alex, who is now dead, shot her husband in self-defense.
Self-defense is not a crime. A family tragedy is not a crime.
But earlier this week, the jury got to hear Lori under very different circumstances as the prosecution played snippets from her interviews with detectives. And what happened?
Charles was coming with me to that and yelling at me to give him his phone.
And calls with an insurance agent in the wake of Charles's death. Here to fill us in is Nate Eaton, the news director at East Idaho News and an NBC News consultant on this case. Nate right now is calling us tucked away in the corner of a courthouse in Phoenix. Nate, thank you so much for joining us.
Yeah, good to be here. I apologize for the noise. We're on our lunch break, so it might be a little loud out here, but I am tucked away and ready to report what's been happening.
Listen, thank you for giving up your food to bring us up to speed. So this week, the trial has given the jury a chance to hear Lori's voice from the hours and days after her brother, Alex Cox, shot Charles Vallow. And some of this comes from phone calls that Lori made to ban her life insurance after her husband's death. So tell us about those phone calls and why they're so important for the prosecution here.
Lori thought she was the sole beneficiary of a $1 million life insurance policy. Days after he shot to death in her front room, she called the life insurance company to cash in on that policy.
Why are Lori Vallow Daybell's phone calls to the insurance agent critical to the case?
Are you aware of who the primary beneficiary of the policy is? It's me.
They told her that they would send her information via email. She learned a few days later that she was not the recipient. Instead, it was her husband's sister.
How did she react when she found out? That had to have been very surprising for her.
Oh, yeah, she was shocked. She was upset. She called the life insurance company lady and tried to get answers as far as why this happened.
Okay, let's listen to some of that conversation.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
Who is Blayne Alexander and what is this episode about?
0:22–1:05
2
What new evidence emerged in Lori Vallow Daybell's trial?
1:05–3:29
3
Why are Lori Vallow Daybell's phone calls to the insurance agent critical to the case?
3:29–5:49
4
How did Lori Vallow Daybell behave during the investigation and court testimonies?
5:49–7:29
5
What is the latest update on Karen Reed's retrial?
7:29–8:00
6
How was the jury selected for Karen Reed's retrial and why is it significant?
8:00–27:32