Trial starts for Mount Vernon woman accused of murder plot

MOUNT VERNON – The trial of a Mount Vernon woman accused of plotting to have her ex-husband killed has started.

Vanessa Valdiglesias-Lavalle, 37, is charged in Skagit County Superior Court with solicitation to commit murder and solicitation to commit assault with a noxious substance after she allegedly tried to convince her child to kill the the child’s father, The Skagit Valley Herald reported.

According to court documents, Mount Vernon police received a report in June about a conversation the 10-year-old boy recorded with his cellphone in which Valdiglesias-Lavalle allegedly is heard telling a child to tamper with his father’s food or drink using “venom” or rat poison.

In his opening statement Tuesday, Skagit County Prosecuting Attorney Rich Weyrich told jurors that while there was no promise of money to be exchanged, Valdiglesias-Lavalle promised her oldest son that if he would poison his father the boy and his younger brother would be able to live with her forever.

The father has primary custody of the children, Weyrich said.

Valdiglesias-Lavalle’s lawyer, public defender Adam Yanasak, told jurors in his opening statement that the evidence would prove Valdiglesias-Lavalle was not a vengeful or vindictive woman who tried to hire her son to commit murder, but that she was instead a “hardworking, loving mother, who has a tendency … to overshare with her children.”

The conversation between mother and son, was “inappropriate,” Yanasak said, but not illegal.