Chad Daybell has been found guilty of killing his wife and his girlfriend’s two youngest children nearly five years after the bizarre and tragic case first captured the nation’s attention.
Daybell, 55, a self-proclaimed prophet and “doomsday cult” author remained emotionless while the verdict was read on Thursday afternoon. He was found guilty on all counts.
The 12 jurors deliberated for just under six hours following closing arguments on Wednesday after listening to two months of testimony that revealed a deeply disturbing tale of murder, unexplained deaths, apocalyptic cult beliefs, and bizarre claims of zombie children.
Now the jury will be tasked with deciding if Daybell should be sentenced to life in prison or the death penalty for the crimes.
The Idaho man had been charged with three counts of first-degree murder, insurance fraud, and conspiracy to commit murder and grand theft in connection with the 2019 deaths of his wife Tammy Daybell, and Lori Vallow’s two children, Tylee Ryan, 16, and Joshua “JJ” Vallow, seven.
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 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.
Prosecutors say it was Daybell’s “desire for sex, power, and money” that led to the killings and that he and Vallow justified the crimes by creating an apocalyptic belief system that people could be possessed by evil spirits and turned into “zombies.”
The only way to save a possessed person’s soul was for the possessed body to die, she said.
“Three dead bodies ... and for what?” prosecutor Lindsey Blake told jurors during closing arguments on Wednesday. “Money, power and sex — that’s what the defendant cared about.”
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 Vallow’s late brother, Alex Cox, committed the crimes.
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.”
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 Cox were fuelled, in part, by their bizarre cult beliefs. Cox died of natural causes during the investigation and was never charged.
“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 said Cox later tried to frame Daybell by burying the charred remains of the slain children in Daybell’s yard in Rexburg, Idaho.
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.
Prosecutor 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.
Blake also said Daybell manipulated Vallow and her brother, 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 earthy relatives, no encumbrances. However, they left a wake of destruction and tears for those that had trusted them,” Blake said.
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 came to the defense of their father. They 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 told the court that if there had been a struggle or fight, he would have heard it. But he said he heard nothing.
Like Vallow, Daybell himself never took the stand in his own defense.
