BOISE, Idaho — Prosecutors will make final arguments before a jury Wednesday in the case of an Idaho man accused of killing his wife and new girlfriend’s two youngest children.
The trial of Chad Daybell has already lasted about two months, and the testimony of dozens of witnesses has been at times strange and chilling.
Prosecutors said Daybell, 55, promoted unusual and apocalyptic spiritual beliefs to justify the killings, all of which could satisfy his desires for money, sex and power. They said that if Daybell is found guilty, he would seek the death penalty.
Daybell’s attorney, John Prior, argues there is not enough evidence to conclusively tie Daybell to the death, or even to prove that his late wife, Tammy Daybell, died instead of natural causes. Several witnesses testified for the defense, including the adult children of Chad Daybell and Tammy Daybell.
Daybell is charged with three counts of first-degree murder, insurance fraud, conspiracy to commit murder and grand larceny in connection with the deaths of Tammy Daybell, 7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow and 16-year-old Tylee Ryan. .
Last year, the children’s mother, Lori Vallow Daybell, was sentenced to life in prison without parole for murder.
Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow Daybell married just two weeks after Tammy Daybell’s death in October 2019, raising suspicions among local law enforcement officials. Tammy Daybell’s body was later exhumed, and her officials said her autopsy showed she died of asphyxiation. Chad Daybell told officials that Tammy Daybell was sick and died in her sleep.
But witnesses on both sides seem to agree on a few things. Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow Daybell were having an affair that began long before Tammy Daybell’s death, and their two young children went missing months before they were found buried in Chad Daybell’s grave. backyard.
The case began in the fall of 2019, when Lori Vallow Daybell’s then-estranged husband, Charles Vallow, was shot and killed at his home in suburban Phoenix, Arizona. Vallow Daybell’s brother, Alex Cox, committed the shooting but told police it was self-defense. Cox was not charged.
Lori Vallow Daybell, her children JJ and Tylee, and her brother Cox all moved to eastern Idaho and settled in a town not far from the rural area where Chad Daybell lived. Just months later, an extended family reported their two children missing, and law enforcement officials began a multi-state search.
The children’s remains were found buried on Chad Daybell’s property almost a year later. Investigators later determined that both children died in September 2019. Prosecutors said Cox conspired with Chad Daybell and Vallow Daybell in all three deaths, but died of natural causes during the investigation and was not charged.
During the trial, prosecutors presented testimony from Lori Vallow Daybell’s niece, who said the couple believed people could be possessed by evil spirits, turning them into “zombies.” Melani Pawlowski told jurors that the zombies would eventually be overcome by dark spirits and die. Her testimony echoed testimony given last year by another friend of the couple, Melanie Gibb. Gibb testified at Lori Vallow Daybell’s trial that she heard Vallow Daybell call her two children “zombies” before they disappeared.
Jurors heard grim testimony from law enforcement officers who found the children’s bodies in Daybell’s yard. They were also presented with dozens of cell phone records and messages between Daybell and Vallow Daybell. This includes that she called Charles Vallow on the day he died. In one message, Daybell told Vallow Daybell that JJ was “barely attached to him” and that “plans for the kids were being coordinated.”
Defense witnesses included Dr. Kathy Raven, a forensic pathologist who reviewed Tammy Daybell’s autopsy report and said the cause of death should be classified as “undetermined.”
Chad Daybell’s son, Garth Daybell, testified that his mother was tired and sick before she died. He told jurors that the night her mother died she was home and did not hear any noise from the bedroom next to her parents’ room. He later said he felt like police and prosecutors were pressuring him to change his story, at one point even threatening him with perjury charges.
