BOISE, Idaho (AP) — An Idaho jury has convicted Chad Daybell of murder for killing his wife and her girlfriend’s two youngest children.
The verdict marks the end of a years-long investigation that included bizarre claims of zombie children, doomsday predictions and infidelity. A jury will be tasked with deciding whether Daybell should be sentenced to death for those charges.
Prosecutors have charged Daybell and his new wife, Lori Vallow Daybell, with multiple counts of murder, conspiracy and burglary in connection with the September 2019 deaths of Vallow Daybell’s two youngest children, 7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow and 16-year-old Tylee Ryan.
Prosecutors charged the couple in connection with the October 2019 death of Chad Daybell’s wife, Tammy Daybell.
Prosecutors have said they would seek the death penalty if Daybell is convicted.
Daybell’s lawyers argued there was insufficient evidence linking Daybell to the murders and suggested Vallow Daybell’s brother, Alex Cox, was the culprit.
Vallow Daybell was convicted last year and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
The ruling was the final verdict in a complex trial that lasted nearly two months.
As the trial moves to the sentencing phase, prosecutors will attempt to prove that the crimes were particularly egregious, heinous or cruel enough to warrant the death penalty, or that there are other “aggravating factors” outlined in state law, while Daybell’s defense will attempt to present mitigating circumstances to show the jury that a lesser sentence is appropriate.
The case began in September 2019 when a relative reported the two children missing, sparking a multistate search by law enforcement. The investigation that followed took an unexpected turn.
According to investigators, Vallow Daybell and Chad Daybell were engaged in an affair until both spouses died suddenly. Vallow Daybell’s husband was shot and killed in Arizona in July 2019 by her brother, Alex Cox, who told police he acted in self-defense. He was not charged.
Vallow Daybell, her children JJ and Tyree, and Cox have since moved to eastern Idaho to be closer to Daybell, who has self-published apocalyptic-focused fiction loosely based on Mormon teachings.
Tammy Daybell died in October 2019. Chad Daybell initially told police she had died in her sleep after a medical emergency, but an autopsy later determined she died of asphyxiation. Chad and Vallow Daybell surprised their family by marrying just two weeks after Tammy Daybell’s death.
Nearly a year after the children went missing, their bodies were found buried on Chad Daybell’s property in eastern Idaho. Investigators later determined the children died in September 2019. Prosecutors allege that Cox conspired with Chad and Vallow Daybell in the deaths of the three children, but that they died of natural causes during the investigation and were never charged.
Prosecutors called dozens of witnesses to bolster their case that Chad and Vallow Daybell conspired to kill the two children and Tammy Daybell in order to remove any obstacles to their relationship and to obtain money from their survivor benefits and life insurance policies. Prosecutors said the couple justified the murders by creating an apocalyptic belief system that people could be possessed by evil spirits and turn into “zombies,” and that the only way to save a possessed person’s soul was to allow the possessed body to die.
Fremont County Prosecutor Lindsay Blake said Daybell, 55, described himself as the leader of the “Church of the First Son” and told Vallow Daybell and others he could tell if someone had become a “zombie.” Daybell also claimed he could determine how close someone was to death by reading what’s called a “mortality rate,” Blake said.
Blake said Daybell used these elements to trace a pattern for each person killed.
“They will be labeled ‘black’ by Chad Daybell. Their ‘mortality rate’ will go down. And they must die,” she said in closing arguments.
Blake also said Daybell manipulated Vallow Daybell and his brother Cox into cooperating with the plan, at times giving Cox a “spiritual blessing” and warning him that the angels were angry because Vallow Daybell sometimes ignored him.
Daybell’s defense lawyer, John Pryor, rejected the prosecution’s description of Daybell’s faith, saying Daybell was a traditional believer in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a deeply religious man who spoke about his faith whenever he had the opportunity.
Pryor said police were only looking for evidence against Daybell, not the actual facts of the case, and that the children’s late uncle, Cox, was responsible. He noted that Cox had previously killed JJ Vallow’s father in Arizona, a shooting that was witnessed only by the two children. He also said that Cox had tried to frame Daybell by burying the murdered children in Daybell’s yard in eastern Idaho.
Witnesses on both sides agreed that Chad Daybell and Vallow Daybell were engaged in an affair long before Tammy Daybell’s death.
Defense witnesses included forensic pathologist Dr. Kathy Raven, who reviewed Tammy Daybell’s autopsy report and said the cause of death should have been classified as “unknown.”
Chad Daybell’s son, Garth Daybell, told jurors he was at home the night his mother died and didn’t hear any commotion. He said he later felt police and prosecutors pressured him to change his testimony, at one point threatening to sue him for perjury.
