Two different versions of Chad Daybell are being portrayed at the accused killer’s death penalty trial.
One is a religious leader in charge of his household and business, and the mastermind behind the murders of his wife and his lover’s children. The other is a submissive man who was helpless to the women around him.
Prosecutors say Daybell’s “desire for sex, money and power” led to killings of his first wife Tammy, 49, and his current wife Lori Vallow’s children, Tylee Ryan, 16, and JJ Vallow, seven.
But throughout the weeks-long trial currently underway in Boise, Idaho, Daybell’s defense attorney John Prior has attempted to paint his client as a man who was at the mercy of Vallow, who he described as a voracious and “very sexual” woman who lured him to do his 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.”
The tragic and shocking case has horrified America for the last five years not only because of the brutality of the murders, but also the unanswered questions around the role their extreme beliefs played in what happened.
The pair believed they had been chosen for a religious mission to lead “the 144,000” cult followers – and that Daybell was a prophet and Vallow was a goddess.
Last year, Vallow was convicted in the three murders and sentenced to life in prison. Now with Daybell’s trial underway, and the defense wrapping up, the central question facing the jury is: who was in charge? And as a religious traditional couple, gender also has a powerful implication on their dynamics.
When the defense began on Monday, those watching the trial found the concept of Daybell being controlled by the women in his life a bit ironic.
Author Leah Sottile, who detailed the case so far in her book When the Moon Turns to Blood told The Independent that Prior’s strategy of deflecting blame to Vallow was “misogynistic” and an attempt to convince the jury that Daybell had been “overtaken by a Jezebel figure like Vallow — a woman of failed marriages, irresistible sexuality.”
“So here we have a strange dichotomy: a man from a very patriarchal faith saying the women around him controlled him,” Sottile said.
She highlighted a motion filed last year by Prior that claimed that Vallow “manipulated Chad through emotional and sexual control.” He was “less culpable” than his wife in the crimes he is accused of,” the motion read.
“I think many of us believed Daybell would lay all of the blame in this case at the feet of Lori,” she explained. “That was precisely the argument Prior made during his opening when he described her as a woman with a trail of failed marriages behind her, who was a ‘beautiful, vivacious woman. Very sexual woman.’”
However, Sottile said this portrait of control doesn’t square up with her understanding of the patriarchy at the heart of the Mormon faith.
Both Daybell and Vallow grew up Mormon, as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
According to the church’s own website, a man is the “presiding authority in his family,” and that “being a father of a family gives you opportunities to learn to govern with love and patience, and with your wife to teach each of your children correct principles; to prepare them to become proper fathers and mothers. When you do this according to the pattern given us by the Lord, and you endure to the end, your family will be added upon eternally. A righteous family is an eternal unit.”
The couple met at a religious conference in October 2018 and Vallow became enamored with Daybell’s prophetic persona and discussions about the end of times, prosecutors say.
Family and friends said that’s when Vallow’s beliefs became more extreme, with testimony at her trial exposing how these beliefs grew increasingly fantastical and dangerous, invoking zombies, dark spirits and death.
“In his thirst for sex, power and money, Chad created an alternate reality where they called themselves James and Elaina,” Prosecutor Rob Wood told the jury during opening statements in early April.
And Vallow was Daybell’s “exalted goddess,” he said.
Details of Daybell’s faith emerged in testimony late in the trial when his daughter Emma Daybell Murray took the stand to defend his actions at her mother’s funeral – which was held just three days after her sudden death — after another family member described his demeanor as “strange.”
But Daybell’s daughter said the way he acted at the funeral was “typical for any grieving Latter-day Saint husband/man.”
“Latter-day Saints believe we will be resurrected and with our families forever,” she said. “A funeral isn’t saying goodbye forever—it’s a ‘see you later’. It’s a break.”
For six weeks of grueling testimony, as graphic autopsy photos were shown and family members sobbed in the courtroom, Daybell sat stoically at the defense table – rarely reacting as he kept his hands clasped tightly in front of him.
It’s the same demeanor one of his published authors remembers from when she worked with him at the publishing operation Daybell ran in Utah.
“Seeing him behind the defense table reminds me of him behind his office desk back in the day – and he still has the same look,” Julie Coulter Bellon, who signed her first publishing contract with Daybell’s company Spring Creek Books two decades ago, told The Independent.
“He was so quiet and could be very intense. You can see his emotion in his hands,” she said. “He’s doing what he did 20 years ago. It’s the body lean and how his hands tighten so tightly that the knuckles turn white and he explains why it’s going to be his way.”
Bellon, whose first four books were published by the company, said she was caught off guard when the defense made the claim that Tammy was the “brains” behind the company.
“He did everything there, made all the decisions. He had his finger in all the pies. I don’t know why Prior said Tammy was the one,” she said.
Bellon explained that Tammy was the creative one who helped with book covers, but it was Daybell who made the big decisions.
“Tammy was the dynamic one. She came in occasionally to help and she was always outgoing and friendly and we chatted about mom stuff and of course, books,” Bellon said.
“Chad was always the quiet one, but with his background in publishing, he was really trying to get Spring Creek Books off the ground and seemed to be doing a good job of it,” she continued. “That’s why it caught me off-guard when the defense opening statement said Tammy ran that company. She didn’t.”
Bellon recalled the same intense demeanor from Daybell when they met about their first book and he had an issue with a scene he wanted her to change because of its impropriety.
Even though the characters in the scene were a grandmother and grandson – and nothing inappropriate was happening — because they were a woman and a man in a hotel room, he was adamant about changing it.
“He made me change it,” she said. “It’s just ironic now.”
Bellon has been closely watching the trial, and was eager to hear from Daybell’s adult children, who took the stand in week six to defend their father.
“I was really surprised when Emma described Tammy as introverted,” Bellon wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “When I knew Tammy Daybell, she was outgoing, friendly, and just plain fun to be around. I would not describe her as introverted or like Chad at all!”
Bellon left the publishing company in 2010, but kept up with Tammy on Facebook. When the beloved mother-of-five and school teacher died, it was a shock to the entire author community, she said.
“I knew them when things were ordinary and normal, they seemed like a perfectly-matched couple, an opposites-attract sort of thing,” she said.
“It’s truly sad how it all turned out. Tammy was always smiling and chatting with everyone around her. A light that was taken way too soon.”
Daybell’s trial will resume on Tuesday, with closing arguments to soon begin. If found guilty of murder, he may be sentenced to death as a possible punishment.
