The elderly parents of Chad Daybell’s first wife Tammy will not be allowed to virtually attend the Idaho murder trial of his second wife Lori Vallow, who is accused along with Mr Daybell of killing Tammy.
Ms Vallow, dubbed the “cult mom”, is currently facing trial in Ada County Court for allegedly conspiring to kill both Tammy Daybell and her two youngest children, 16-year-old Tylee Ryan and seven-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow. Her doomsday preacher husband, who is facing the same charges, will stand a separate trial later this year.
The couple is accused of killing Ms Vallow’s children in September 2019 after they became convinced the minors were zombies whose “dark spirits” had to be released through death. They then got married in Hawaii and refused to cooperate in a desperate cross-state search for Tylee and JJ that went on for nine months before their remains were ultimately found buried on Mr Daybell’s property in Salem, Idaho.
Just weeks before their wedding, Mr Daybell’s first wife, Tammy, was also found dead at their Idaho home in October 2019. Tammy’s death was initially ruled to be from natural causes and his husband declined an autopsy.
The case was reopened amid the search for JJ and Tylee, paving the way for conspiracy charges Mr Daybell and Ms Vallow now face in Tammy’s death. Earlier this year, her brother Benjamin Douglas and father Ronald made requests to view Ms Vallow’s ongoing trial remotely.
Mr Douglas and his father, who live in Utah, argued in the filing that they have a “right and responsibility to bear witness” in Ms Vallow’s trial but that it would be difficult to attend in person. Ronald, 80, and his 76-year-old wife Phyllis’s health conditions are reportedly too weak to travel out of state.
Meanwhile, Mr Douglas said he couldn’t miss work for the up to eight weeks the trial is expected to last. He said he’d be happy to comply with any guidelines, but also did not want to leave his wife alone in Utah to care for their three-year-old twins.
The applications were denied last week by Judge Steven Boyce, who is presiding over Ms Vallow’s case.
Judge Boyce has banned news cameras in the courtroom. The trial will be streamed to two courthouses in Idaho — in a separate room in Boise, where the trial is taking place, and in Madison County, where the children are believed to have been killed.
The case was moved to Boise over concerns that its notoriety would taunt the jury pool. Despite efforts to try the case in a different county, dozens of jurors have been dismissed due to previous knowledge about the crimes.
Thirty-nine jurors have been chosen so far. The court must select 42 jurors before narrowing down the number to 18 — 12 who will deliberate and six alternates.
JJ and Tylee were last seen in September 2019, weeks after the family moved to Rexburg, Idaho, following Ms Vallow’s husband Charles Vallow’s fatal shooting by her brother Alex Cox during a supposed domestic argument — for which Mr Daybell and Ms Vallow are also facing conspiracy to murder charges in Arizona.
Cox claimed he acted in self-defence before his death in December 2019.
Ms Vallow is believed to have moved to be closer to Mr Daybell, an alleged cult leader she married in November of that year.
While the children were never reported missing by their mother, police began investigating their whereabouts in late November 2019 after a family member raised concerns. Their bodies were then discovered buried on Mr Daybell’s property.
JJ and Tylee are believed to have been killed in the days after they went missing.
