“Cult mom” Lori Vallow suddenly left the room where she is standing trial for the murders of her daughter and son after the court heard graphic details on how the children’s remains were recovered in a pet cemetery.
Ms Vallow’s ongoing trial in Boise, Idaho, was delayed on Tuesday when her defence attorneys asked Judge Steven Boyce for a moment to speak with their visibly upset client, KUTV reported. Ms Vallow and the rest of the court had just returned from a lunch break after hearing disturbing details about the way her children JJ, seven, and Tylee, 16, were discovered buried on her doomsday preacher husband Chad Daybell’s property.
Testifying for the prosecution, Rexburg Police Detective Ray Hermosillo recounted the grisly scene investigators found on 9 June 2020, nearly nine months after his department first alerted the FBI of Ms Vallow’s refusal to disclose her children’s whereabouts.
Mr Hermosillo told jurors that JJ’s body was found wrapped in a plastic bag and duct tape. In another area of the property, investigators discovered burnt flesh and charred bones that were later confirmed to be Tylee’s remains.
The detective said every investigator at the scene could only work for a few minutes at a time due to the unbearable smell. Photos of Mr Daybell’s property that were admitted as evidence showed burnt bone fragments and teeth, and JJ’s body wrapped in black plastic.
Once the plastic bag was slit open there appeared to be human hair. Other images showed the wet soil where the bodies had been buried.
“The smell was so bad we had to take turns digging ... eventually we uncovered bits and pieces of Tylee, whom we assumed was Tylee, that had been burned,” Mr Hermosillo told the court. “There were pieces of bone, charred flesh, just globs of flesh that were falling apart.”
He added: “...It was very easy to identify that boy ... as the one we had been looking for, for the last eight months.”
Following Mr Hermosillo’s testimony, Judge Boyce called for a lunch break. But shortly after the court reconvened, Ms Vallow became shaken and her attorneys asked the judge for another recess so they could have a private discussion.
KSLTV5 journalist Lauren Steinbrecher reported that Ms Vallow’s eyes looked watery and red. Nate Eaton, news director of East Idaho News, said that Ms Vallow appeared “upset and sad.”
Reporters in the courtroom also noted that Ms Vallow seemed to show no emotion during Mr Hermosillo’s testimony, and only became upset afterwards.
Defence attorneys were seen stepping in and out of the room before Ms Vallow was eventually brought back inside. Her legal team argued that she should be excused from the afternoon portion of witness testimony due to her “fragile state of mind.”
Judge Boyce denied the request, saying that her presence is needed to ensure due process.
Mr Hermosillo testified on Tuesday that he helped conduct a welfare check on Ms Vallow’s Rexburg apartment on 26 November 2019 after increasingly worried relatives in Arizona told law enforcement that they had not seen or heard from JJ and Tylee in months.
He said Ms Vallow and the children were nowhere to be found, but Mr Daybell and Ms Vallow’s brother Alex Cox told him the children were staying with JJ’s grandmother Kay Woodcock in Arizona — which the detective already knew to be false.
When asked to contact Ms Vallow, Mr Daybell said that he did not have her number.
“We knew Chad and Lori had married two weeks prior to my contact with him,” Mr Hermosillo told jurors in reference to the couple’s Hawaii wedding on 5 November 2019. “I assumed he was lying because I knew they were close.”
Mr Hermosillo testified that after knocking on Ms Vallow’s door without obtaining a response, he filed a request for a search warrant. Later that day, Ms Vallow opened her door and agreed to speak with detectives, telling them this time that JJ was “with one of her friends” in Arizona.
Mr Hermosillo returned the next day to serve the search warrant, only to find that Ms Vallow was gone. Inside the apartment, investigators retrieved guns in the garage of the apartment, as well as several Army-grade knives, and empty magazines for various weapons.
Police also found Hazmat-style suits and preparedness bags with emergency kits, a camouflage suit, ammunition, guns, silencers, and black trash bags full of clothes and papers. Toys and items belonging to JJ, including prescription medication, were also found in the search.
Recounting the scene at the apartment, Mr Hermosillo said someone appeared to have fled in a hurry, taking all of their clothes but leaving everything else behind.
Mr Hermosillo said that after the alarming discovery inside Ms Vallow’s apartment, he contacted the FBI to try to locate her, Mr Daybell and the kids.
Rexburg PD also contacted Colby Ryan, Ms Vallow’s oldest son, who told officers he had not spoken to his sister Tylee in a while.
Mr Hermosillo told the court that the last date he is aware of “proof of life” of Tylee was on 8 September 2019, based on a photo of her taken at Yellowstone. The last documentation that JJ was alive is 22 September 2019, based on a photo of him sitting on a couch in Ms Vallow’s front room.
On 11 December, the police officially reported the children as missing. Ms Vallow was ordered to produce the kids to Rexburg PD, and was ultimately arrested in Hawaii on 21 February 2020 when she failed to do so.
Ms Vallow is being tried for the murder of Tylee and JJ, and for conspiracy to murder Mr Daybell’s first wife Tammy Daybell, who died in her sleep just weeks before Mr Daybell and Ms Vallow married.
Ms Vallow and Mr Daybell are also facing conspiracy to murder charges in Arizona for Ms Vallow’s previous husband Charles Vallow’s fatal shooting by her brother Alex Cox during a supposed domestic argument. Cox claimed he acted in self-defence before his death in December 2019.
Prosecutors alleged during opening arguments on Monday that Ms Vallow and Mr Daybell conspired with Cox to murder Charles Vallow, Tammy Daybell, JJ and Tylee as part of their doomsday cult beliefs and for their financial purposes.
Ms Daybell is scheduled to face trial later this year, after requesting to be tried separately from his wife.
