Lori Vallow-Daybell and The Murders of Her Children

 

I had not intended on doing this case just quite yet. There are so many layers to this case and so much more to be seen yet through the courts. My previous blog site was established enough that I could add cases that were older and unknown and well quite honestly shorter and easier to put together. So initially I was thinking as I did a re-launch that the more stories I got out, the better to get it off the ground. While I do share the links on my person Facebook page as well as the page from the old blog, that is the only traffic it will see unless someone is looking for something specific. And let's face it people are not searching for obscure older cases, they are searching the cases that are in the news and current or a least still in the minds of people.

This is another case where I have started, erased and started again more than once. My goal was to tell the story like I do in so many other cases and then analyze it. I was attempting to simply concentrate on the deaths of Lori Vallow-Daybell's children, Tylee Ryan and J.J. Vallow but even that was difficult to do. You cannot tell the story of their deaths without also telling the story of the deaths of Charles Vallow and Tammy Daybell at the very least. You cannot tell the story without explaining the relationship between Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow; you cannot tell the story without talking about mental illness; you cannot tell the story without talking about Lori's brother, Alex Cox. So here I was sixteen pages into this story and I realized I had not even gotten to the point of talking about the last known days of her children, how the search began for them and all that lead to that.

No matter how many of us know the ending of this story, we want to know the why. The when and the how are pretty evident through evidence and forensics. Chad's family blames Lori for manipulating and controlling him, although to be fair his children do not believe he was involved in the death of their mother, Tammy. Lori's family blames Chad for manipulating and controlling her.

The discovery of the bodies in shallow graves on Chad Daybell's property on June 9, 2020 (Findagrave.com says found on the 10th) changed the perspectives for some but the core questions are still there. I cannot see that anyone, knowing the evidence, can say that they, along with Alex Cox were not knowing participants. Obviously both bodies being on Chad's property, no matter how big it may have been, looks bad for him. He could claim he did not know but two things about that stand out for me.

The first is that on September 9, 2019, the day it is believed that Tylee was murdered, or at least buried on the property. Alex Cox's cell phone showed he was at Chad's property for a period of two hours. On that same day Chad texted his wife, Tammy, and told her that there had been a wild raccoon on the property, he had retrieved his gun, shot the raccoon and buried it in their pet cemetery. Family would later say that there were two pet cemeteries on the property (who has one, let alone two??) and that the raccoon story could still be true. Tylee's body was found in one of them. Her body had been burned and she had been dismembered and ultimately her cause of death could not be determined. Authorities would later dig in that area more and say they never found the corpse of a raccoon, hence the story of the second pet cemetery.

Secondly, on September 23, 2019, the day it is believed that J.J was possibly murdered and buried, Alex Cox's phone is once again at the Daybell property. This time it was only for seventeen minutes. This indicates that either the hole was pre-dug (and we know that Chad was once a “gravedigger”) or the body was left there to be buried later. I believe the hole was already there and those less than 17 minutes were spent placing him in the grave and covering it up. His body was more preserved as he had been wrapped in blankets and his head had been covered in plastic and duct tape was on his mouth. His cause of death was asphyxiation.

Both of these dates were the day after anyone outside of Lori, Chad, or Alex could claim the children were alive. There is even a picture taken of J.J the night before wearing the red pajamas his body was found in. Alex of course has been the ultimate scapegoat in this case because he suddenly died in December of 2019, after the search for the children began but before they were ever found. Authorities have said that his cause of death seemed to be a blood clot “wedged in the arteries of his lungs” and it was ruled as being natural.

When it comes to the children we absolutely know Alex was there when they were buried and we know it was on Chad's property. It is reasonable to believe that they were involved or obviously had knowledge and involved in the “cover up.” In a court of law they would both be as guilty as anyone else who may or may not have been involved and been the actual murderer. So that leaves Lori.

We can sit here all day and argue whether she was involved, whether she helped plan it or exactly what she did or did not know. The bottom line is that there cannot be any reasonable argument that she knew nothing. These were her children. She would tell some after Tylee was gone that her daughter was in college yet no one spoke to her. Someone was still using her phone though to at the very least reply to texts sent to her from her brother, Colby. There is also a report that while speaking with a neighbor at some point after she was gone, but before they were discovered, that Chad had said Lori's daughter had recently died. On November 8^th, nearly two months after both children were gone, three days after Lori and Chad were married, and some eighteen days before police would come knocking on the door looking for J.J, Chad emailed someone about a house in Hawaii to rent saying they were a “clean couple” who did not have any children or pets.

On November 26^th authorities went to Lori's home doing a welfare check on J.J at the request of his biological grandmother, Kay Woodcock. They first came across Alex and Chad (who authorities did not know was now her husband) and were told that J.J was with his grandmother. Well, authorities knew that was a lie since the said grandmother was who had sent them. They found their way to Lori who then told them that J.J was with her friend Melanie Gibb in Arizona. She gave them contact information. Then Lori and Chad scrambled to get a hold of Melanie so that they could get her to tell authorities he was with her. After being a devoted “follower” of Chad and Lori's for a very long time suddenly Melanie was suspicious, and she was angry. Her friends were asking her to lie for them and she was not only uncomfortable in doing so, she wanted to see if she could determine why. Her next conversation with the couple was audio taped. At this point she was not sure that her “friends” were not trying to set her up for something. Chad and Lori insisted to Melanie that J.J was safe but they had him hidden and they just needed this little favor from her to prevent the authorities from being involved. Melanie loved her friends but she still was not comfortable with the situation and was not going to lie so she let the authorities know that J.J was not in her care.

It seems that before things got too out of hand Chad and Lori were living in Hawaii and out of reach for a bit but authorities were still not just looking for the children, but looking at other things. In December of 2019, after discovering that Chad and Lori had married only a few weeks after Tammy's death and that an autopsy had not been performed it was decided to exhume her body. Authorities were also discovering that Charles Vallow, Lori's fourth husband had been killed by her brother, Alex Cox, in Arizona the previous July. It had been dismissed as a self defense case. Tammy's autopsy would show that she had died from “asphyxiation at the hands of another.” Bruising on her body had indicated that she had been held down. The story had been that Tammy had been sick on the night of October 18^th with a cough when she went to bed and that the following morning Chad woke up to find her dead in the bed.

It was widely reported that Chad had refused the autopsy for his wife but his children have come out and said that it was they who made this decision. They claim that Chad was distraught and practically non-functioning and could not make decisions. They have expressed that they believed she was sick the previous day and there was no reason to believe anything nefarious had happened. Since the autopsy has been performed they have also expressed doubts in the results. It seems almost as if they accept the finding of asphyxiation but not the “at the hands of another part.” They simply explain that asphyxiation is the ability to no longer be able to breathe and that would be reasonable (to them apparently) since she was sick. They have also expressed that they feel authorities have lied to them in the past and they are unsure if they should believe them now. I find this position very odd to be honest. There were reports that ten days before her death Tammy was in her driveway and as a car drove by they fired a shot in her direction. If this is true and was reported even to just family members I do not understand why no one was suspicious ten days later when she died.

I also realize that the fact that Chad soon remarried, while upsetting, does not mean he murdered his wife, but this is how circumstantial cases are formed. You hear a lot about that when you hear people talk about criminal cases and argue someone's innocence.... “it is all circumstantial.” This is true because there are only two types of evidence, circumstantial and direct. Direct evidence would be something like a murder being on video and there is no question what happened. So, most cases are circumstantial but it is about building a puzzle. In the end you have to ask yourself in cases whether all of these things were just a coincidence and the person accused is the most unlucky person on the planet or whether it is reasonable to believe all of these “little” things put together point to guilt. So when it comes to Tammy you have her husband having an affair, someone taking a shot at her, she becoming sick and dying in her bed with only her husband present and just a few weeks later her husband marries his mistress. Aside from the affair being ongoing the other things all occurred between October 9^th and November 5^th.

By the end of January 2020 Chad and Lori are found living in Hawaii. She is served papers on the 25^th of that month, poolside no less, ordering her to produce her children to the courts or face arrest. Body cam footage shows both she and Chad very nonchalant about the situation. On February 20^th she is arrested in Hawaii on charges of desertion and non support of her children. She was extradited back to Idaho fairly quickly and seemingly Chad returned on his own.

It is during this time that Lori's mother and sister decided to do an interview with the media. Lori's son Colby had discouraged them but apparently they insisted they needed to come to Lori's defense. She was continuing to tell people the children were safe but was refusing to reveal their whereabouts. Since that time Lori's mother has expressed regret in doing that interview and has admitted that she was wrong in her beliefs. Lori's sister for the most part has remained quiet publicly. Jail phone calls have been released and she did testify at Lori's trial in 2023. In the call, and on the stand she seems to no longer believe or support her sister.

Seemingly Chad's home had previously been searched but it is unclear how much, if any, of the surrounding property had been looked at. On June 9^th authorities, now with several agencies involved, descended on the property with warrants and with equipment to dig around. Chad was relegated to the end of the property while the search was conducted. A well publicized phone call from Lori at that time has been released. Lori seems her normal, upbeat self and Chad sounds defeated telling her authorities were searching the property. The call does not last very long and neither really says anything incriminating. Soon after Chad begins moving several thousands of dollars out of his accounts (presumably money from Tammy's death) and giving it to his children. At some point it was said that Chad drove away from the property but was caught and told to return home. He was arrested later that day when two bodies were discovered. J.J was fairly recognizable and while it was not officially released the next day, it was apparent enough to everyone around they had found his body and new circulated quickly. Tylee's body was not as identifiable but still authorities were certain that they had also found her. It seemed unreasonable to believe that J.J was there and not Tylee for one, for two they had the evidence that Alex Cox had also been on the property on the day they believe Tylee had been buried.

Both Lori and Chad were eventually charged in Idaho for the murders of Tylee and J.J. Chad has also been charged in the murder of his wife Tammy while Lori was charged with conspiracy to commit murder regarding her. Lori was also charged with grand theft for continuing to obtain and use Social Security monies her children received because of the deaths of their own fathers and for J.J's disabilities. In addition to that Lori has been indicted in Arizona for the murder of her forth husband, Charles Vallow.

It was believed that the couple would be tried together despite efforts to have their cases severed. They were not being successful in that effort but it appears the attorney's finally figured a way. Chad waived his right to a “speedy trial” but Lori did not. That meant that her trial was to be conducted before a period of time, but Chad's attorney's were taking more time to prepare. The prosecutors had announced they were seeking the death penalty against them both. Their trial, that had been moved away from Rexburg and into Boise due to the public interest and the belief a fair trial could not be held in Rexburg. The trial was scheduled to begin on April 3,2023 but on March 2^nd the judge finally decided to sever the trials.

Lori had been declared incompetent to stand trial in June of 2021 for a period of time. This puts a stop clock to the “speedy trial” issue but it starts right back up again the second she is declared competent again which was occurred in April of 2022. Her trial was set for January of 2023 but in mid-2022 she once again was declared incompetent and in August of that year the judge had delayed the trial until April with “just cause.” She was declared competent again in November and in January of 2023 her attorney's attempted to have all charges dropped due to the fact she was denied a speedy trial. The judge disagreed. In March of 2023, just before the trial was to begin another hearing was held. The defense had filed to have the death penalty removed stating that they had received more evidence from the prosecution at a late date and they were not going to be able to have it completely looked at before the trial that was starting in a few weeks. Prosecutors asked that the trial be delayed so the defense did have time but the judge replied that he could not do that due to the speedy trial issues and he could not give the defense a reason for an appeal before the trial even started. He felt he had no choice but to drop the death penalty in the case.

Many news outlets completely bashed the prosecution for this and were very vocal about it. I, like most, was angry that she was no longer facing the death penalty because while I am not necessarily an advocate for or against the death penalty I truly believe it is warranted in this case and for not just Lori, but Chad also. However, as I dug a little deeper into the issue, despite the “experts” on television blaming the prosecution and basically vilifying them. I cannot say that I saw things that way. The overwhelming narrative to this was that the judge took the death penalty off to punish the prosecution for missing deadlines and not following the law. That is absolutely not true. In his ruling the judge made it very, very clear that this was not a punishment to the prosecution or that they had done anything against the rules. This ALL had to do with the speedy trial rules. The judge had no choice without violating Lori Vallow's Constitutional rights but to have the trial when scheduled and while the defense was arguing that … they were now arguing basically they were not fully prepared to defend her against the death penalty.

Personally I believe this was probably the one and only thing the defense did, or maybe even could do to help her. Few murder defendants push for a speedy trial. They want to have everything in order, have every defense available to them to present to the court and present an adequate defense. In this case in particular their client was declared incompetent, twice so she was unable to assist her defense at those times. The prosecution could still be digging and gathering things and their case but the defense was being hindered. The fact that they continued to push for a speedy trial on the surface could almost give her an argument for ineffective counsel but in the end it is what saved her life. The evidence in this case was SO overwhelming right out of the gate that the death penalty was almost certain. It did not matter if she was the instigator or the controller of Chad or anyone else. The bottom line was these were her children who were murdered and she did nothing. She knew they were not “safe” and protected like she told people. If we want to play the game that she knew nothing about their murders then we have to believe that this mother had not seen or spoken to her children in months and yet believed they were safe and still did not force someone to tell her the truth when the authorities were demanding she show her children. That is totally unreasonable to believe but again does not matter because she was their mother and in charge of their well being.

Lori's defense attorney's really had few options at their disposal. They had to throw all the blame on Alex Cox, who was now dead, and Chad Daybell, who thankfully was not sitting in a chair next to her and will have his own trial later. They had to make the jury believe that she was so under the control of Chad that she believed everything he said and did and she was somehow under his spell and that her own brother was in on it with him but she was not involved. This is the same brother who had been HER protector over the years. Simply put, I believe it was an impossible task for them.

The prosecution in my opinion did an excellent job. They presented a theme in their opening statement that they reminded the jury repeatedly throughout the trial about and ended on that same theme and note. They were adamant that no matter how this case had been portrayed through the media, this was not about religion. This case was about “money, sex and power.” Of course the defense had to argue against these things, at least the money and sex, and I do not want to say that they necessarily did a good job doing so, but I think they did the best they could do with what they had.

As far as the money the defense argued that if Lori was all about money, then she would have stayed with Charles. His income was said to be between $400,000 and $500,000 a year. I am uncertain exactly what Charles did, but apparently he did it well. Chad was only bringing in about $30,000. Chad was in debt and his publishing company was not doing well. But what the defense failed to mention was that Lori was bringing in some $6,000 in benefits due to her children, and that alone is a lot of money. Now she still had the money, just not the kids that she had to spend it on. When it came to the sex, the defense placed pictures side by side of Charles and Chad. To the average eye and on looks alone the defense was correct, it was not even a close comparison. Charles was much more attractive than Chad. But, of course we all know that love is in the eye of the beholder and that sex and love do not always have to do with looks. Charles was not home very much it seems and marriages go through ups and downs. And let's be fair, when it comes to sex, “goofy looking” men try harder, which in and of itself could have been the attraction. They really could not say much about “power” because they needed their client to be the “weak” one.

In the end the defense could not convince the jury that Lori was not responsible for the murders, or even the conspiracy charge related to Tammy. As obvious as it seemed to me she was guilty it was even more obvious when it came to the theft charges so of course they found her guilty of those charges too. She was convicted on May 12, 2023. Her sentencing has been scheduled for July 31^st (almost three weeks from this writing, so I will make an effort to come back and update).

All in all it still brings us back to the why. If you look online there is discussion after discussion about what Lori may “suffer” from. There are thoughts that she is a psychopath, a sociopath or one that suffers from schizophrenia. I have a family member who suffers from schizophrenia and so I have experience dealing with someone that suffers with that as well as have done significant research on the disease and I absolutely disagree that Lori suffers from that. However, an allegation was made several decades ago in a custody dispute involving one of Lori's sisters. The ex-husband claimed that Lori's father, Barry, had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. I cannot confirm this to be true and I am not completely certain that throughout all of this with Lori someone did not find that long ago filing and it has just come down as fact and passed around. But, if in fact this is true that opens the door wider to a multitude of possible mental disorders. Anyone can suffer from a mental disorder or have issues but when it is present in a family the odds are higher. It was said that Lori demanded that mental health not be discussed at her trial and while she has obviously seen doctors while inside since she had been deemed incompetent and then competent again, twice, there has likely been a diagnosis made. Of course due to privacy laws they will not be released unless she gives consent and at least currently she does not seem to want that. No matter how curious I am about her mind and any diagnosis made I respect her right to not tell the world anything related to that.

With that being said, there is something going on and the odds are that she has always had issues but for the most part was able to hide it and control it. By all accounts Lori's son Colby states that aside from the time that Joe Ryan, his adopted father and Tylee's father, was in their lives things were good and Lori was always a wonderful mother. Joe Ryan was Lori's third husband and they were only married three or four years while Colby was between the ages of five and nine. There were allegations at least from Colby that he was physically and sexually abused by Joe Ryan and reports that he had a “violent temper.” The only real thing that stands out about Lori's behavior up to this point was her multiple marriages. On the surface she had legitimate reasons it seemed for the ending of the marriages.

She married Charles Vallow in 2006 and not only did things appear to be perfect, they appeared happy. I am the first to tell you that I understand that what people on the outside do not know is how someone is behind closed doors but here there seems to be nothing. I have never heard of anything being said about her having any violent tendencies, or depression or being anything other than a happy, bubbly, loving, caring mom and person. I find this odd because at this point her family realizes that she was involved in the murders of her children and while many of them have chosen to remain silent, there are a few who have spoken out and still no one says there were any issues with her. You are not hearing someone say “There was this one time......” and thinking back they see it was a red flag of something. It just seems so strange to me.

Now suddenly she has met someone new and she has a new obsession, not just with the man, but with his ideas. Just going by this assessment alone it does appear that Chad somehow changed her but it has to be more than that. We have seen and heard multiple recordings, both audio and video, of her since prior to her children being murdered but after she had met Chad Daybell and had begun her obsession. One of the first was when she was brought into a police station after Charles was finally able to obtain some sort of court order to have her evaluated mentally. She was taken to the station and spoken to first and that was recorded. She and the officer talk about the allegation made and while the officer states she must comply with the order he saw absolutely nothing wrong with her and was sure that things would be just fine. She sounded completely normal. The next time I think we see anything from here comes from first body cam footage and then later a police interview done after Charles was shot and killed by her brother, Alex. Again, she is bubbly, talkative but not necessarily in a rambling way. She is very lucid and again, personable. The only thing that standout is that she remains “bubbly” the entire time. She shows no anger at what happened, no grief that her husband died. She was not “flat” in how she spoke as if she was completely unemotional but she did not change emotions. And, that appears to have continued throughout everything. She appeared that way when she was served papers in Hawaii to produce her children; she appears that way when you see her in court. She even sounds that way when you hear her in jail phone calls, even in conversations where the person on the other end, like her son or sister, is yelling at her and expressing to her how they are angry that she was involved in the murders of her children.

In fact, there seems to have been only two occasions in which publicly she has shown any other emotion and both occurred in court. The first was when her son, Colby, testified. It was reported that she appeared to begin to cry, something no one had seen her do at all. The second time was during the statements made by her attorney during closing arguments. Her defense really hammered on Chad and spoke very badly of him. The media reported that Lori's demeanor completely changed and you could see that she was very angry that her attorney was speaking of Chad in that manner. When he was done it was apparent that Lori put some distance between them. The following day when cameras were allowed in the courtroom for the reading of the verdict you could still see she was angry at her attorney.

Sociopaths do not have the ability to have empathy or remorse and this would surely fit Lori but again, it all seems so odd that if she had these issues all her life that she had controlled them so well. That diagnosis would explain how during police interviews she was so fluid in her speaking. She was able to convince everyone that she was not the “crazy” one when Charles made accusations and for a long period of time she could she was able to convince those who followed her and Chad in her beliefs no matter how outlandish they were. But, through it all I am still left with the question of whether she really believed those things or it was all a ploy.

When trying to analyze her behavior my mind kept going to Andrea Yates. In the law The M'Naughton Rule says that if someone knows the difference between right and wrong, then you are sane and can be tried for crimes. I do not totally agree with this because it is so black and white and people are not black and white, neither are their actions. Andrea Yates suffered from postpartum depression. She left home alone with her children when her husband went to work and her mother in law had not yet come to the house to help her. In that time period she took each of her children, drowned them in the tub, laid them gently on the bed, side by side and then called her husband and then the police. Andrea made it very clear that she knew that what she did was legally, and most believed morally, wrong. But she did not care because she wholeheartedly believed that this world was an evil place and that her children were better off in heaven. She did not care about the consequences she faced because in her heart of hearts her children were safe. She was initially convicted of murder but despite the M'Naughton Rule her attorney's were able to have her tried again and she was placed, not in prison, but in mental facility. I have thought about Andrea Yates through this not necessarily because she, like Lori, murdered her children, but because I have asked myself why did Lori, if she truly believed in the end of the world, the 144,000, the light and dark spirits, why was she not expressing that?

Even if Lori knew that if she mentioned these things that she would not be believed and her ultimate goal was to endure and recruit until the end of the world came, which by the way she and Chad proclaimed would be July of 2020, there would have been some signs. With all of the things that she expressed to the other believers and all of the disdain she expressed to and about some, there would have been signs in her voice or on her face when she was being interviewed by the police or being served papers. These were people that could put her goal at risk and in my opinion if she really believed that at the very least you would have seen it on her face or in her voice. And yet neither is present. This leads me to believe that all of her talk about the end of the world and the 144,000 was a way to get what she really wanted, “sex, money and power” and all with out her children.

I promise I have just about reached the end here but I want to touch just a little on my feelings about Chad. I have not dug deep into him and can say I know very little about him other than what little I have read and seen. Lori has always been the “interesting” one here because of her children. Sadly men kill their wives every day and that is not attention grabbing for the media. But, it is more than that. Every time that we have seen Chad on a police body cam or in court he seems like this meek, geeky, quiet man. He looks down, he always looks sad ...etc. He has that “flat” attitude that I mentioned we do NOT see from Lori. Even in the phone call he received from Lori on the day the bodies were found on his property his voice on the phone is very drab and monotone. It is a very different personality compared to the happy, bubbly, always smiling Lori. If we were to use this idea of him it surely seem so easy to say that obviously Lori was the manipulator, obviously Lori was the one in control, he just simply did as he was told.

Keep in mind however that everything I mentioned above have been situations in which Chad knew he was, or at least could be, video or audio recorded. There were police body cams, media cameras and cameras in the courtroom. Even the call from Lori tells him that he call is being recorded. But, during Lori's trial we heard a whole different side of him. There was a phone call recorded by their friend Melanie Gibb after she felt uneasy they had asked her to lie to the police about J.J. In that call, one that Chad had no idea was being recorded (Arizona is a one party state meaning you do not have to tell the other person they are being recorded) he was very adamant what and why they needed from her. He was a bit brash which goes totally against the image we are being shown regularly. There also text messages between Chad and Lori that were rather sexual in nature. This is also in contrast to the man we have been presented. I think the man wrote books, did books tours, learned how to BS people left and right and he knows how to act. I think he presents that act to the public every time we see him and I think we will see that act at his trial next year. I think the prosecutor in that case will have his/her hands full. I think they will do okay with the evidence and pulling it together to get convictions but I am curious what they will do that will pull the jurors over the edge to give him the death penalty. Surely his attorney's will do as Lori's did and put the blame on Alex and this time add her to the mix. His attorney's are sure to say that Lori was the puppet master here. It will definitely be interesting to watch.