Jurors are deliberating the fate of an Idaho man who is charged with murdering his first wife and his girlfriend’s two children in what prosecutors say was part of a plan for “desire for sex, power, and money.”
Chad Daybell, 55, has remained mostly expressionless throughout the two months of testimony at the Ada County courthouse in Boise, where he sits like a statue at the defense table, his hands clasped tightly in front of him.
But during closing arguments on Wednesday, the self-proclaimed prophet with bizarre cult beliefs shook his head multiple times while prosecutor Lindsey Blake was speaking.
Daybell is charged with murder in the 2019 deaths of his wife Tammy Daybell, who was found dead in their bedroom in October 2019, and Lori Vallow’s two children, Tylee Ryan, 16, and Joshua “JJ” Vallow, who were found buried in Daybell’s backyard in June 2020 – nine months after they vanished.
As Daybell’s death penalty trial drew to a close on Wednesday, the “doomsday” author shook his head “no” after Blake told jurors that Tammy’s body was dark, that she had to die and Daybell did not want to wait.
He shook his head “no” again later when Blake said he had taught “dark people, possessed people (that) the body has to die.”
It was Daybell’s “desire for sex, power, and money” that led to the killings, prosecutors say, and that he and Lori Vallow justified the crimes by creating an apocalyptic belief system that people could be possessed by evil spirits and turned into “zombies.”
And the only way to save a possessed person’s soul? It was for the possessed body to die, she said.
“Three dead bodies ... and for what?” Blake told jurors during closing arguments. “Money, power and sex — that’s what the defendant cared about.”
Just two weeks after Tammy Daybell died in October 2019 from what was initially believed to be from natural causes, Daybell and Vallow were married on a beach in Hawaii, raising suspicion among law enforcement officials.
It was only after Vallow’s two children were reported missing – and authorities began delving into the couple’s bizarre cult beliefs – that questions were asked about Tammy’s death and her body was exhumed for an autopsy – something the family refused initially.
It was determined she had died of asphyxia and Daybell was charged with her murder, as well as the murders of Vallow’s children, who were found buried in Daybell’s Rexburg backyard in June 2020, nine months after they went missing.
Over the past two months, prosecutors have called dozens of witnesses to bolster their claims that Daybell and Vallow conspired to kill the two children and Tammy Daybell because they wanted to get rid of any obstacles to their relationship and to obtain money from survivor benefits and life insurance.
Blake said Wednesday that Daybell styled himself a leader of what he called “The Church of the Firstborn” and told Vallow and others that he could determine if 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 their “death percentage.”
With these elements, Daybell followed a pattern for each of those who were killed, Blake added.
“They would be labeled as ‘dark’ by Chad Daybell. Their ‘death percentage’ would drop. Then they would have to die,” she told the court.
Last year, in the same courtroom, Vallow was convicted of the three murders and sentenced to life in prison.
Jurors heard how she, Daybell and Vallow’s late brother, Alex Cox, were fuelled, in part, by their bizarre cult beliefs. Cox died of natural causes during the investigation and was never charged.
At Daybell’s trial this week, Blake said Daybell manipulated Vallow and Cox, into helping with the plan, at times bestowing ‘spiritual blessings’ on Cox and warning Vallow that the angels were angry because she was at times ignoring him.
“They had money, power, sex, and no obstacles and, specifically, no earthly relatives, no encumbrances. However, they left a wake of destruction and tears for those that had trusted them,” Blake said.
But Daybell’s defense attorney, John Prior, told jurors that there wasn’t enough evidence to tie Daybell to the deaths. He said police looked only for things they could use against Daybell rather than the actual facts of the case — and he claimed that Cox committed the crimes.
“Alex Cox is a murderer, and he is not shy about shooting people,” Prior said on Wednesday, noting that Cox had previously killed Vallow’s fourth husband, Charles Vallow, in Arizona and that the two kids were the only witnesses to that shooting.
He also said Cox later tried to frame Daybell by burying the charred remains of the slain children in Daybell’s yard in Rexburg, Idaho.
Prior pinned the murders on Cox and Vallow and said Daybell was manipulated by Vallow who he described in opening statements as a voracious and “very sexual” woman who lured him to do her bidding.
“This beautifully stunning woman named Lori Vallow comes up and she starts giving him a lot of attention,” Prior said of the couple’s first meeting at a religious convention in October 2019. “She pursued him. She encouraged him.”
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 talked about his spiritual beliefs every chance he could get.
Prior said it wasn’t a “plan to kill, but it was a plan to gather,” referring to the couple’s belief that the world would end in July 2020 – and that they would lead a group of 144,000 people who would be saved during the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, according to previous witness testimony.
“Whether you agree with light and dark, it doesn’t matter. Whether you believe in death percentages, it doesn’t matter,” Prior said. “He’s entitled to his beliefs.”
Over the course of two months, there were 67 witnesses called for the prosecution, six of whom were called back, while the defense called 11 witnesses, including two of Daybell’s adult children. Six rebuttal witnesses were also called.
Daybell’s son, Garth Daybell, and his daughter Emma Daybell Murray, both testified that their mother had been fatigued and sickly before she died.
Garth told jurors he was home the night his mother died and that he heard no disturbances from his bedroom next to his parents’ room, but later only heard Daybell snoring.
He said he later felt like police officers and prosecutors were trying to pressure him to change his story, even threatening him with perjury charges at one point.
In his testimony on the stand, Garth told the court that if there had been a struggle or fight, he would have heard it. But he said he heard nothing.
The next morning, his father called him to help and he rushed to the room to find his mother halfway off the bed and not breathing.
“I felt she was cold and stiff and gray,” he recalled. “I realized she had been not breathing.”
However, rebuttal witness Jason Abegelen, who worked with Garth at a haunted house, recalled a different story. He told the court that Garth told him how he found his mother dead in the bedroom and that his father was not there.
Defense witnesses also included Dr Kathy Raven, a forensic pathologist who reviewed reports from Tammy Daybell’s autopsy and said she believed the cause of death should have been classified as “undetermined.”
Daybell has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Like Vallow, Daybell himself never took the stand in his own defense.
If convicted, he faces the death penalty or life in prison. The same jury will decide his fate after further testimony.
