Dateline NBC
Lori Vallow Daybell's phone calls. Karen Read's retrial set to start. And Houston's "lost boys".
Thu, 17 Apr 2025
Listen to this week's episode of the Dateline: True Crime Weekly podcast with guest host, Blayne Alexander. In Arizona, the prosecution plays phone calls Lori made to her insurance agent in the days after her husband's shooting. In Massachusetts, a jury is finally seated in the Karen Read retrial, and the prosecutor has a new strategy. The accused Gilgo Beach serial killer is back in court. Plus, a forensic anthropologist on a mission to identify the victims of the Candyman serial killer.Find out more about the cases each week here: www.datelinetruecrimeweekly.comListen to Keith's podcast, Mommy Doomsday, about the Lori Vallow Daybell story here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mommy-doomsday/id1540849480Listen to Josh's episode "The Widow of Woodland Hills" about the Monica Sementilli case here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-widow-of-woodland-hills/id1464919521?i=1000703469294And vote for us for a Webby award: https://vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting#/2025/podcasts/shows/crime-justice
Chapter 1: 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.
Chapter 2: 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.
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Chapter 3: 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.
So I can tell you that the beneficiary was changed in March of this year. Okay. Okay, I'm trying to figure out what he was doing since we have five kids and we've been married for 15 years. I'm sorry. Did he change it to one person or was it several people? Unfortunately, I can't release that. I'm sorry. Okay. I deal with this business all the time, so. Okay.
I kind of know how it works, but I'm completely surprised. Right. We have our seven-year-old with autism that we adopted together, so. Oh, okay. surprised that he would do that without telling me.
Interesting. I'm fascinated on what it must have been like to be in the courtroom listening to those calls play. What was the mood inside the courtroom? How were people reacting?
I think people were really into this, really intrigued, because we got to hear her demeanor. In fact, when the operator said, tell me how your husband died, Lori pauses for a moment.
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Chapter 4: How did Lori Vallow Daybell behave during the investigation and court testimonies?
What else did we learn from the detective during her testimony?
This is a detective who went to the scene the morning of the shooting. A couple of things stuck out to her. One is how nonchalant Lori was about the whole thing. The detective said that she didn't think that Lori knew that her husband was dead. Lori entirely went into a police van and the detective said, I'm going to go over and I'm going to let her know her husband's dead.
I think at some point I asked her something to the effect if she would step out of the van to talk to me. And at that point she said that she already knew because she was there, which was kind of a surprise. I wasn't necessarily expecting that.
Did her demeanor change at all when she's telling you that she was there and knew he was dead?
No. No.
And Lori did get pretty fiery with that particular detective on cross-examination.
What did you say that made me say that I was already there?
I was asking you to step out of the van. And you said, I was there, I already know.
I already know what?
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Chapter 5: What is the latest update on Karen Reed's retrial?
Okay. And it would have been non-emotional if I was trying to be calm for my daughter? I'm going to object to speculation.
Sustained.
Were you being calm? I believe so. Were the other detectives being calm?
I believe so.
Okay.
Okay.
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Chapter 6: How was the jury selected for Karen Reed's retrial and why is it significant?
There is just so much here. Nate, thank you so much for keeping us up to speed. And for more on the trial, you can also check out Nate's show, Courtroom Insider. That's live at 8 p.m. Mountain Time on the East Idaho News YouTube channel every day after court.
Thank you, Blaine. Good seeing you.
You too. Coming up, as Karen Reid's blockbuster retrial gets underway, how her own words may come back to haunt her. Karen Reed's first trial began almost a year ago. Reed was charged with second-degree murder, among other charges, for allegedly killing her boyfriend, John O'Keefe, a Boston police officer.
Prosecutors say she left him to die in the snow after hitting him with her SUV outside of a party at the home of another Boston police officer. Now for its part, the defense argued that O'Keeffe had been beaten up inside the house and Reed was being framed for his death. Reed has pleaded not guilty. Her first trial ended after nine weeks without a verdict. I'm declaring a mistrial in this case.
In the years since, Karen Reid's case has never been far from the headlines as attorneys have continued to battle it out in pretrial hearings and Reid herself has spoken out. This week, a jury was finally selected for the retrial. With opening statements set for next Tuesday, Dateline producer Sue Simpson joins us again to bring us the very latest on what to expect this time around.
Sue, there is so much to watch here. Thanks so much for joining us to break it all down. Yeah. Hi, Blaine. Hi. Hi. Okay, so let's get into it. On Tuesday, we finally got a jury. That is big.
Yeah, it really is big. Judge Canone wanted 18 jurors, and she got them Tuesday afternoon, nine men and nine women. All of the jurors are going to be seated for the entire trial, but after closing arguments, only 12 of them are going to be chosen to deliberate.
Okay. So in the initial trial, a lot of our listeners will remember that jury selection happened in the first week. This time around, it took double that time. So why did it take longer this time around?
Blaine, it was a huge challenge to see the jury in a case that is as public and controversial as this one. Let's just look at the numbers from court for Tuesday's jury pool. Pool number 10. There were 54 people. 43 had heard of the case. 26 had formed an opinion. And that's about half of the people there. And eight reported having a bias. So then you have other conflicts.
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