A look at some key testimony from 2nd week of Lori Vallow Daybell murder trial

BOISE — In many criminal trials, two weeks of testimony would build a pretty clear picture of what happened to the victims, why something happened and who is to blame.

In the murder trial for Lori Vallow Daybell, however, no matter how many questions seem to get answered, there are still many that remain unanswered. So much of the high-profile story remains hidden.

This is a largely circumstantial case with three killings at three different times in two different months, with no eyewitness accounts of the deaths shared with police or investigators. Those three people are Daybell’s children, 7-year-old JJ Vallow and 16-year-old Tylee Ryan, and Tammy Daybell, the wife of Chad Daybell, who married Lori Daybell 17 days after Tammy Daybell’s death.

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Lori Daybell’s trial resumes its third week of testimony Monday and is scheduled to last for eight to 10 weeks.

Among the most interesting evidence presented in the past week was a recording of a jail phone call between Lori Daybell and her son Colby Ryan that was played for the jury. The call was made shortly after the bodies of Tylee and JJ had been found and Ryan accused his mother of murdering his half-siblings. Daybell told him, “I’m sorry you feel that way,” and said, one day, he would know what happened.

“Tylee and JJ know what happened. They love me and they are fine, and they do know the truth and I know the truth,” Daybell said in the phone call, adding that the whole world judges her but doesn’t understand her.

She also indicated that God is on her side. “One day we will all stand there with Jesus … and you will know the truth of everything,” she told her son.

Ryan accused his mother of lying to him numerous times. He indicated he had been receiving text messages from Tylee but suspected someone else had been sending them because the conversations and punctuations were different than normal.

Ryan also testified that his mother called him on the day her then-husband Charles Vallow was killed and told him his stepfather had died of a heart attack. He soon learned Vallow had actually been shot by his uncle, Alex Cox.

Alex Cox

 

Cox — Lori Daybell’s brother — is a key player in the trial, even though he is dead. He died from what authorities say were natural causes in December 2019, the day after Tammy Daybell’s body was exhumed. He was never charged in connection with the case.

In addition to killing Vallow, which he claimed was in self-defense, prosecutors say Cox’s cell phone was in the area when a masked gunman confronted Tammy Daybell in her driveway. They also say Cox’s phone was in the Daybells’ backyard around the last time Tylee was ever seen, near the spot where her body was later discovered.

And David Warwick testified this past week that Cox was carrying a sleeping JJ to bed the last time anyone else reported seeing him alive.

Warwick and his wife were staying in Lori Daybell’s Rexburg apartment that night and said he woke up in the middle of the night with a bad nightmare and his wife suggested getting help from Lori and Chad Daybell. But the wife returned and said she couldn’t get anyone to come. Warwick said he had suspicions about Lori Daybell’s explanation for JJ being gone in the morning. He said she told him she had asked Cox to take JJ because she couldn’t handle the boy’s behavior, describing him climbing on top of high cabinets and knocking down a picture of Christ overnight. The guest said he saw no evidence of that alleged incident.

Prosecutors say Cox was close with his sister and his purpose in life was to protect her. Cox’s wife testified this past week that he had sought advice from his sister and Chad Daybell about every decision he made. The couple told him that in previous lives he had been the angel who visited Saul in the New Testament, an angel who appeared to Joseph Smith and a warrior whom Satan had animosity toward.

“Alex believed everything they told him,” Zulema Pastenes testified.

But Cox’s wife testified that shortly before he died, he expressed concerns that he might be Lori and Chad Daybells’ “fall guy.”

In June of 2021, a grand jury in Arizona’s Maricopa County indicted Lori Daybell of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in Vallow’s death.

Tammy Daybell

 

Lori Daybell was in Hawaii when Tammy Daybell died, and she returned to Rexburg, Idaho, on the day of her funeral. Prosecutors are claiming she was a conspirator in the death and say when she returned to Idaho, she acted like Tammy Daybell never existed.

Warwick also testified last week that Chad and Lori Daybell “were very loving with each other and affectionate” when he stayed at Lori Daybell’s apartment, even though Chad Daybell was still married to Tammy Daybell at the time. He said Chad Daybell told him that three years earlier he had a dream that Tammy Daybell would die before he turned 50, and said “her time was coming up.” He said Chad Daybell told him he and Lori were going to follow commitments they made with God together after Tammy Daybell’s death.

Investigators also testified this week that Amazon and Etsy purchase records show Lori Daybell bought rings matching those worn at her wedding to Chad Daybell before his wife’s death.

Initially, Tammy Daybell’s death was not ruled a homicide, but on the first day of testimony, prosecutors revealed for the first time that they now believe she died by asphyxiation. Her body was removed from her Springville grave in Utah for an autopsy in December 2019, after officers began searching for the missing children.

Lori Daybell is charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and grand theft by deception in the deaths of her two children. The grand theft charge is for allegedly taking Social Security benefits for her children after knowing they had died. She is also charged with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in Tammy Daybell’s death.

Defense attorney Jim Archibald told jurors in his opening statements that prosecutors have charged his client with either killing her children, assisting in their deaths, encouraging someone to cause their deaths or commanding another person to cause their deaths.

“This charge is saying, ‘We’re not sure what happened.’ But they want you to be sure,” he told the jury.

Unusual beliefs

 

Friends of Lori Daybell testified last week about her unusual religious beliefs. Some testified about how she believed people’s spirits could leave their bodies and be replaced by demons and that people were on a scale between lightness and darkness. Some cited comments from Daybell that her children were dark or were difficult.

Melanie Gibb testified that right before JJ was killed, Lori Daybell had “indicated he was difficult to handle. And so it was hard for her to do that and be with Chad.”

Friend April Raymond testified that Lori Daybell invited her to join a group that she believes had changed Daybell’s belief system. She said Daybell told her that she “would need to be separated” from her children in order to join the group, and added that Raymond had fulfilled her role in her children’s lives and had a greater role with her — and that she should leave her children with their father.

‘Evasive and lying’

 

The estimated death date for Tylee is Sept. 9, 2019, when purchases on her account became sparse, and the estimated date for JJ’s death is Sept. 23, 2019 — around the time his mother withdrew him from school, according to trial testimony. The search for the two children, however, did not begin until Nov. 26, 2019, when JJ’s grandparents were able to find an address for Lori Daybell and asked local Rexburg police to conduct a welfare check.

Their bodies were found in shallow graves in Chad Daybell’s Salem, Idaho, yard — in his pet cemetery — months later on June 9, 2020.

Rexburg Police Sgt. David Stubbs testified last week that he responded to conduct a welfare check for JJ on Nov. 26 and described people in the home as “being evasive and lying.” His body camera video from two interactions with Lori Daybell and a search of her home was played for jurors.

He said Lori Daybell introduced Chad Daybell as Cox’s friend, even though they knew she had recently married him. In the video, Lori Daybell gave quick explanations for JJ’s absence and acknowledged that she looked “like a suspect.”

Stubbs said there were multiple other things she told the police that they later discovered were all untrue — including an allegation that another brother, not Cox, was trying to murder her for life insurance money; that JJ was with her friend Gibbs in Arizona so that he could go back to a special needs school there; that Gibbs and JJ were watching “Frozen 2” that night, which was likely why Gibbs wasn’t answering her phone right away when police called; and that Tylee was attending BYU-Idaho.

Stubbs went back a third time that day after finally reaching Gibbs, who had told him that JJ was not with her in Arizona. This time, however, no one was there and the home was nearly empty.

Although word of their missing children spread throughout the country, police say Lori and Chad Daybell remained in Hawaii until they were arrested almost three months later.

Electronic trails

 

Some significant evidence in the case has been found through analyzing electronic devices and financial and business documents.

Benjamin Dean, an intelligence analyst with the FBI, testified that Chad Daybell sent his wife, Tammy Daybell, an unusual text message on Sept. 9, 2019 — the day after Tylee was last seen. He said the text was longer than most texts between the couple and seemed unique.

Chad Daybell detailed burning limb debris and spotting a raccoon in their backyard, shooting it and burying it in their pet cemetery.

Later, officers searched the pet cemetery because of this text — and that is where the bodies of JJ and Tylee were discovered. Police say their bodies had been burned.

Prosecutors also introduced testimony about digital records showing that after the last time they had proof that Tylee was alive, Lori Daybell checked into a hotel without her, and Venmo transactions were sent from that hotel on Tylee’s phone.

What’s next?

 

There are still a few weeks of evidence to come, and some more questions will likely be answered.

As prosecutors finished questioning many of the investigators from the Rexburg Police Department over the last week, they said several officers would be called again to testify about a different part of the investigation.. So over the next few weeks, more will likely be made public about the time between the beginning of the search for JJ and Tylee and when their bodies were found.

Monday is likely to begin with more videos of apartments searched by officers on the day the search began, and a review of some business documents as Stubbs finishes his testimony.

Eventually, the case will be handed over to 12 jurors, just ⅔ of the 18 currently listening to the proceedings. Six are alternate jurors.

Chad Daybell’s trial has not yet been scheduled. His attorney has been attending Lori Daybell’s trial in Boise. Chad Daybell’s charges are similar to his wife’s, but he is also charged with first-degree murder in Tammy Daybell’s death and two counts of insurance fraud.