‘She is a killer’: Jury begins deliberations on Lori Vallow Daybell murder trial
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The Lori Vallow Daybell Trial
Vallow Daybell is on trial in a Boise courtroom and faces first-degree murder charges of her two children, and a conspiracy to commit murder charge in the death of her husband Chad Daybell’s former wife. Follow all our coverage here.
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Madison County Prosecuting Attorney Rob Wood told a packed courtroom there is “one common thread” in the killing of four people throughout Idaho and Arizona. And that was Lori Vallow Daybell.
Prosecutors have spent more than four weeks calling dozens of witnesses, including detectives, former friends and family members to try to convict the 49-year-old Rexburg mother of the first-degree murders of two of her children.
Three years ago, authorities found the remains of 7-year-old Joshua Jaxon “JJ” Vallow and 16-year-old Tylee Ryan buried in shallow graves on the property of Chad Daybell, Vallow Daybell’s husband. Prosecutors in the indictment alleged the Daybells espoused religious beliefs “for the purpose of justifying” or encouraging the homicides.
“We talked a lot about religion, but this is not a case about religion,” Wood said during closing arguments Thursday morning. “It’s about money, power and sex.”
Meanwhile, Vallow Daybell’s defense attorney Jim Archibald said Vallow Daybell was manipulated by Chad Daybell during a difficult part of her life. Prosecutors also alleged the Daybells conspired to murder her children along with Chad Daybell’s then-wife, Tammy Daybell.
“No one here thinks Lori actually killed anyone,” Archibald said. “That’s why she’s charged with conspiracy.”
To be convicted of the first-degree murder charges of JJ and Tylee, a 12-person jury will need to conclude that Vallow Daybell killed, encouraged or commanded someone else to kill her children. Wood said aiding and abetting in the killings is “just the same as pulling the trigger.”
The Daybells — who had a months-long affair — were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and held fringe beliefs that people could be possessed by dark spirits or zombies.
Two of Vallow Daybell’s former friends — Melaine Gibb and Zulema Pastenes — said during their testimonies that they’d participated in “castings” with Vallow Daybell to cast out dark spirits from an individual’s body. Gibb said that if they performed the casting properly, the individual would die, and Pastenes said a dark spirit could be kept out by binding or burning the body.
In Arizona, Vallow Daybell faces a felony charge for allegedly conspiring to kill her fourth husband, Charles Vallow, with her brother. During the defense’s closing argument, Archibald reminded the jury that they aren’t deciding whether Vallow Daybell committed a crime in Arizona or whether she had an affair.
Prosecution says Vallow Daybell was ‘in charge’
In the summer of 2019, Vallow Daybell moved her children to Idaho from Arizona. Wood said they couldn’t kill the children in a place with family and friends, and that the timeline of their actions “tells the truth.”
“They had to go somewhere where nobody knew them,” Wood said.
For over an hour, Wood outlined key pieces of evidence presented during the trial. Wood pointed to a text message Chad Daybell sent Tammy Daybell, in which Chad described shooting and burying a raccoon in their property’s pet cemetery. Chad sent the text on Sept. 9, 2019 — the day after police say Tylee was last seen. Tylee’s remains were later found in that same backyard, scattered in both the fire pit and the pet cemetery.
“This text is where Chad Daybell told us where to locate Tylee Ryan,” Wood said.
He also pointed to a recorded phone call that was played in court between Chad and Lori Vallow Daybell, who was in the Madison County Jail on the day police searched Chad Daybell’s property for the children’s bodies.
Wood said the couple used religion as a tool to manipulate others, including Alex Cox, her brother, who believed everything the Daybells told him and was “recruited and groomed” by them. Wood said JJ’s murder was planned, and that Vallow Daybell “handed her boy off” to Cox, who investigators said also conspired to murder the children.
“Who’s in charge? Lori,” Wood said.
Vallow Daybell is also charged with grand theft for allegedly collecting the children’s Social Security and child care benefits after the children were dead. Wood said Vallow Daybell profited from the children and benefited from Tammy Daybell’s life insurance policy by marrying Chad Daybell.
“She never reported the children missing,” Wood said. “She lied, and she lied, and she lied, and she kept collecting their money.”
Defense: Chad changed Lori Vallow Daybell’s life
Archibald also pointed to the jail phone call between the Daybells, but he said it’s “apparent to him” that Vallow Daybell didn’t know her children were buried in Chad Daybell’s backyard.
“Does she know that Chad and Alex stuffed her kids in Chad’s backyard?” Archibald asked the jury, saying that it was for them to decide and encouraged them to re-listen to the recording during their deliberations.
During prosecutors’ rebuttal, when they can make any last comments after the defense, they told the jurors not to let Vallow Daybell “pin this all on one other person.”
“The defense says she’s not a killer,” Wood said. “She is a killer.”
When the Daybells met in October 2018, Archibald said, Vallow Daybell’s story changed “dramatically,” and it was “quite a remarkable change.” Archibald said that before meeting Chad, Vallow Daybell worked as a beautician and was a mother of five.
He noted Vallow Daybell’s family members even testified that Vallow Daybell was a “good mother” when they described her.
Archibald said it didn’t make sense for Vallow Daybell to conspire to kill Charles Vallow for money because he made somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000 a year.Chad Daybell only made $20,000-$30,000 a year, Archibald said, because he couldn’t sell enough of his “stupid books” about the end of times.
He said Chad Daybell is the one who recruited people to their fringe religious group, “The Church of the Firstborn,” and that Vallow Daybell didn’t recruit anyone. Witnesses who knew the Daybells said they believed they were leaders of the 144,000, a group of people who would be saved during the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
Archibald questioned whether Tammy’s death was a homicide and pointed to testimony from Utah Chief Medical Examiner Erik Christensen, who performed the autopsy on Tammy Daybell.
Tammy Daybell’s death was ruled a homicide by asphyxiation, Christensen said. But when questioned by Vallow Daybell’s other defense attorney, John Thomas, during the trial, he said he couldn’t 100% rule out a seizure, though it was “very unlikely” Tammy Daybell died from one.
Archibald also questioned why Vallow Daybell would list her kids on the rental application, or enroll JJ in school, or hire him a babysitter if she was planning on murdering her children.
“The only thing that makes sense to me is that she didn’t have a plan,” Archibald said. “She wanted to be with Chad.”
He added that while Vallow Daybell lied to police when they asked her about her kids’ whereabouts, that doesn’t mean she knew they’d been killed.
Archibald said Vallow Daybell wasn’t a leader, and that she was following Chad Daybell, who she thought was following Jesus Christ. In reality, Archibald said, Chad Daybell was following “the storm,” which was what the Daybells called Chad Daybell’s penis in their text messages.
Archibald toward the end of his argument said Jesus Christ is loving, caring and good.
“That’s the Jesus that Lori believed in before she met Chad Daybell,” Archibald said.
Fingerprints, hair sample found with JJ’s remains
Two key pieces of physical evidence were presented by forensic scientists during the trial: fingerprints and a hair sample.
Idaho State Police forensic biologist Katherine Dace during the third week of testimony said she located and sent a hair sample to a private lab that worked with the Rexburg Police Department. The hair sample was stuck to a piece of duct tape, which was on the outside of a garbage bag that held JJ’s body. JJ’s body was found wrapped in a black garbage bag and bound in duct tape, while Tylee’s remains were burned and found in pieces.
“JJ’s voice was silenced forever by a strip of duct placed over his mouth,” Wood said during closing arguments.
DNA analyst Keeley Coleman, who works for the private lab, Bode Technology, said in her testimony that the hair sample belonged to Vallow Daybell. Dace during her testimony said it’s possible the hair was floating around inside the body bag and got stuck onto the piece of tape.
Archibald said Vallow Daybell’s hair being found with JJ’s body wasn’t proof that she killed him.
“Is that a smoking gun? No, not at all,” Archibald said, adding he would hope mothers have close contact with their children.
Idaho State Police Forensic Scientist Tara Martinez also testified and said she found fingerprints on a portion of the black plastic garbage bag that was found around JJ’s body. The fingerprints matched Cox.
“Tylee, JJ and Tammy can’t tell us what happened, but their bodies do,” Wood said.
Vallow Daybell’s criminal trial is nearing its end after nearly five weeks of prosecutors presenting witnesses. The defense chose not to present any evidence.
The jury began deliberating Thursday afternoon. It’s unclear how long the jury panel will take to reach a verdict, and there is no time limit.
A trial date hasn’t been set for Chad Daybell — who’s also charged with the first-degree murder of Tammy Daybell — but his trial could occur in June 2024. Cox died of natural causes in 2019.
This story was originally published May 11, 2023 at 10:39 AM.
