BOISE, Idaho – An Idaho man was convicted Thursday of killing his wife and his new girlfriend’s two youngest children in a strange triple murder case that included allegations of apocalyptic prophecies, zombie children and illicit affairs.
The jury deliberated just six hours before finding Chad Daybell guilty on all charges, ending a case that began in 2019 and spanned at least four states. Daybell, standing tall and wearing a long-sleeved dress shirt, remained stoic as the verdicts were read.
Now jurors will be tasked with deciding whether Daybell, 55, should die for the murders of Tammy Daybell, 16-year-old Tylee Ryan and 7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow. The penalty phase of the nearly two-month trial began Thursday and will resume Friday.
The children’s mother, Lori Vallow Daybell, was sentenced to life in prison without parole on the same conspiracy and murder charges last year. She married Chad Daybell just two weeks after Tammy Daybell’s death.
The case attracted widespread media attention and the judge moved the trial from the rural eastern Idaho community where the murders occurred to Boise, Idaho, in an effort to ensure a fair and impartial jury.
At the sentencing phase, prosecutors will attempt to demonstrate that the crimes merit the death penalty because they were especially depraved, heinous or cruel or that they meet one of the other “aggravating factors” detailed in state law. Daybell’s defense, however, will attempt to provide the jury with mitigating circumstances that could show the panel that a lighter sentence is more appropriate.
The case began in September 2019, when relatives reported the two children missing and law enforcement authorities began a multi-state search. The subsequent investigation took several unexpected turns.
Vallow Daybell and Chad Daybell were having an affair when their spouses died unexpectedly, investigators said. Vallow Daybell’s husband was shot to death by his brother Alex Cox in Arizona in July 2019; the brother told police he went in self-defense. He was not charged.
Vallow Daybell, her children JJ and Tylee, and Cox later moved to eastern Idaho to be closer to Daybell, a self-published writer of doomsday-focused fiction loosely based on Mormon teachings.
In October 2019, Tammy Daybell died. Chad Daybell initially told police she was battling an illness and died in her sleep, but an autopsy later determined she died from asphyxiation. Chad Daybell and Vallow Daybell married just two weeks after Tammy Daybell’s death, surprising family members.
Nearly a year after the children disappeared, their remains were found buried on Chad Daybell’s property in eastern Idaho. Investigators later determined that both children died in September 2019. Prosecutors say Cox conspired with Chad Daybell and Vallow Daybell in the three deaths, but Cox died of natural causes during the investigation and was never charged.
Prosecutors called dozens of witnesses to bolster their claims that Chad Daybell and Vallow Daybell conspired to kill the two children and Tammy Daybell because they wanted to free themselves from any obstacles to their relationship and get money from survivor benefits and life insurance. Prosecutors say the couple justified the murders by creating an apocalyptic belief system that people could be possessed by evil spirits and turned into “zombies,” and that the only way to save the soul of a possessed person was to die the possessed body. .
Fremont County Prosecutor Lindsay Blake said Daybell called himself the leader of what he called “The Church of the Firstborn” and told Vallow Daybell and others that he could determine whether someone had become a “zombie.” Daybell also claimed to be able to determine how close a person was to death by reading what he called the “death percentage,” Blake said.
With these elements, Daybell followed a pattern for each of the dead, Blake said.
“They would be labeled ‘dark’ by Chad Daybell. Your “mortality percentage” would drop. Then they would have to die,” she said in her closing argument.
Blake also said that Daybell manipulated Vallow Daybell and her brother, Cox, into helping with the plan, sometimes granting Cox “spiritual blessings” and warning Vallow Daybell that the angels were angry because she sometimes ignored him.
Daybell’s defense attorney, John Prior, rejected the prosecution’s descriptions of Daybell’s beliefs. He described Daybell as a traditional member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a deeply religious man who spoke about his spiritual beliefs whenever he could.
Prior said police only looked for things they could use against Daybell, not the actual facts of the case – and claimed the children’s late uncle, Cox, committed the crimes. He noted that Cox had previously killed JJ Vallow’s father in Arizona and that the two children were the only witnesses to the shooting. He also said Cox tried to frame Daybell by burying the murdered children in Daybell’s backyard in eastern Idaho.
Witnesses on both sides agreed that Chad Daybell and Vallow Daybell were having an affair that began well before Tammy Daybell’s death.
Defense witnesses included Dr. Kathy Raven, a forensic pathologist who reviewed Tammy Daybell’s autopsy reports and said she believed the cause of death should have been classified as “undetermined.”
JJ Vallow’s grandparents, Kay and Larry Woodcock, were among those who attended Thursday’s verdict. Kay Woodcock was the person who initially led police to investigate after she asked them to conduct a welfare check on JJ in 2019. She became increasingly concerned after she said Vallow Daybell began refusing to put JJ on the phone , although the child had already made frequent video and voice calls with the Woodcocks.
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