'A right beyond the ordinary'

BOISE — Religion, seduction, money and obstacles — each of these were discussed at length during opening statements and the beginning of what will be a lengthy trial for Chad Daybell.

During opening statements on Wednesday morning, both the prosecution and defense walked the jury through the timeline of events in the Chad Daybell/Lori Vallow story, beginning with their introduction at a conference and ending with several deaths.

Daybell is charged with conspiracy to commit murder, first-degree murder, insurance fraud and grand theft in connection to the deaths of 16-year-old Tylee Ryan, 7-year-old J.J. Vallow and Daybell’s late wife, Tammy Daybell. Jury selection in the Daybell case took six days including peremptory challenges. Eighteen people — 12 jurors and six alternates — were finalized on Monday morning. Larry and Kay Woodcock, grandparents to J.J. Vallow, were in attendance on Wednesday.

All 18 jurors entered the courtroom around 9 a.m. Wednesday, with Daybell and his attorney John Prior sitting facing the jury seats. The prosecution, composed of Prosecutors Rob Wood, Lindsey Blake, Ingrid Batey and Rocky Wixom, began opening statements because they have the burden of proof.

"Two dead children," Wood opened, speaking at the jury with a microphone in hand. "... buried in the defendant, Chad Daybell's, backyard in September 2019."

The next month, Daybell's wife was found dead in their bed. A few weeks later, Daybell was dancing with Vallow at their wedding in Hawaii, Wood said. Daybell, Wood said, was hungry for power, sex and money — no person or law could stand in his way.

"This defendant believed he had a right beyond the ordinary,” Wood said.

Three people died because of Daybell's desires, Wood said.

Throughout this eight- to 10-week trial, evidence in the form of DNA, law enforcement testimony, voice recordings, calls, texts and Daybell's own words will be used by the state to try to prove Daybell's guilt. Once opening statements were complete, for the first time since the trial began last week, the witness stand was not empty.

TESTIMONY

The state's first witness was Ray Hermosillo, a lieutenant in the detective division of the Rexburg Police Department. Hermosillo became involved in this case on Nov. 1, 2019, when a Jeep involved in a potential homicide was in Rexburg's jurisdiction. His department worked with the Gilbert (Ariz.) Police Department, located and seized the Jeep, which was at an apartment complex in Rexburg.

From Nov. 1-4, Rexburg PD performed intermittent surveillance at the residence and witnessed Daybell and Vallow coming and going from the residence, Hermosillo said during his testimony. He never saw children with the couple. At the time, Hermosillo said he was not aware of J.J. Vallow or Tylee Ryan.

In mid-November, Hermosillo became aware of the children after a discussion with Gilbert police. J.J.'s grandmother, Kay Woodcock, had growing concerns about J.J. and called the police to conduct a welfare check on him, which took place on Nov. 26, 2019, over two months after J.J. was last seen.

J.J. Vallow was last seen on Sept. 22, 2019 and was discovered buried on Daybell's property. His cause of death was suffocation, Wood said. Tylee Ryan was last seen on Sept. 8, 2019, and her remains, charred and dismembered, were found in a grave on Daybell's property. Lori Vallow continued receiving Social Security benefits for both children past the dates they were last seen.

Hermosillo recalled coming across Daybell and Vallow's brother Alex Cox while looking for J.J. Vallow. Cox told Hermosillo that J.J. was in Louisiana with his grandmother.

“I informed Alex that it was unlikely that J.J. was with his grandmother Kay because she was the one who called in the welfare check,” he recalled.

Cox and Daybell exchanged glances while Hermosillo asked where he could find Lori Vallow. At the time, she lived in apartment 175 and her niece lived next to her in apartment 174. When Hermosillo asked Cox for Vallow's phone number, he said that he didn't have it — which Hermosillo assumed was a lie, because he knew the two were close siblings, which is why he called in more detectives.

Hermosillo also asked Daybell when he had last seen J.J. Vallow, to which he replied he had last seen him in October, at apartment 107 with Lori Vallow. He also said he didn't know Vallow very well, which concerned Hermosillo, who knew that Daybell and Vallow had been married for two weeks. When he asked Daybell for Vallow's phone number, he said he didn't have it, but when Hermosillo pressed Daybell on it, he provided the contact information. Daybell told Hermosillo that he didn’t provide Vallow’s contact information the first time because he felt Hermosillo was “accusing him of something.”

After trying to contact residents in apartment 174, Hermosillo went back to the police department to obtain a search warrant to find J.J. Vallow

“Our only focus was to find J.J. and to figure out what was going on,” he said.

Eventually, Lori Vallow called the department back and told them J.J. Vallow was with a family friend in Arizona. They later determined that to be a lie and obtained search warrants for apartment 175, 174 and 107 (the apartment Daybell had said he saw J.J. in last). Everything was ordinary, except for in 175, where there were no clothes on any hangers in the closets, Hermosillo said. There were also some children's scooters on the porch.

Hermosillo and his team found a storage unit contract in 175 and obtained a search warrant for that unit as well. Inside the garage belonging to Vallow were handguns, rifles, army knives and ammunition. Suppressors, used to muffle the sound of a gunshot, were also found in the garage, along with duct tape and rope. Bikes, boxes of winter clothes and a personalized family blanket were also discovered in the garage. A printed-out email from Daybell was also found, with scribbles and numbers associated with names on it. The document was sent on Oct. 30, 2018.

During the search for J.J. Vallow, Hermosillo discovered Tylee Ryan was also missing and began searching for her as well. On Nov. 20, 2019, Rexburg PD alerted the public of the two missing children via press conference. He reached out to the FBI for assistance on Nov. 27 and attempted to contact both Vallow and Daybell to inquire about the missing children. Both phones, Hermosillo said, were shut off.

Hermosillo testified that he wrote the affidavit to get Vallow to produce her children to the Rexburg PD or the Department of Health and Welfare within five days of being served the court order. She was served in Hawaii on Jan. 25. She was arrested in February 2020.

Hermosillo, accompanied by an Evidence Recovery team associated with the FBI, searched Daybell’s property on June 9, 2020. During that search, they marked off a 6-foot-by-6-foot section of land by a pond area in the yard. In his testimony, Hermosillo recalled immediately recognizing the smell of a decomposing human body as soon as they began digging.

The smell got stronger as they dug down, past three large white rocks and some wood planks, and a round, black object protruded through the dirt. It was the crown of a human head.

At this testimony, the courtroom grew still. Hermosillo continued to explain that the recovery team leader made a slit in the black plastic to discover a white layer of plastic beneath it. After cutting through that plastic, they found brown human hair. Inside was a small body, wrapped in black plastic with duct tape around it.

Around that same time, Daybell was driving away from his home at a “high rate of speed,” Hermosillo recalled.

BACKGROUND

The defense attorney, Prior, indicated that a DNA expert and several forensic specialists would be called to the witness stand over the course of this trial. When on the stand, they will each provide the jury with evidence that there was no DNA evidence of Daybell on the remains of Tylee Ryan or J.J. Vallow and that there is no indication that Tammy Daybell died by homicide, Prior said.

Daybell's wife was shot at on Oct. 9, 2019, and died in her own home on Oct. 19, soon after an increase in her life insurance, Wood said. Her death has since been deemed a homicide — Daybell had predicted his wife would die an early death on several occasions, Wood said.

Three or four of Daybell's children will be testifying in their father's trial to discuss their mother's health struggles and medical treatments, Prior said.

Before Daybell met Vallow, he wrote books about the apocalypse and books that discussed religious experiences, premonitions, good and evil, dark and light, death, and the coming of the savior.

Daybell met Tammy at Brigham Young University in Utah and the two dated for six months before getting engaged, Prior said. They started a small publishing company and had five children together.

"For this defendant, that ordinary existence was not enough,” Wood said.

Vallow was a "homemaker" from Arizona, married to her fourth husband, Charles Vallow. Vallow and Daybell met on Oct. 26, 2018, during a conference in St. George, Utah, where Daybell spoke and was selling his books. 

"While he was there trying to sell his books, this beautifully stunning woman named Lori Vallow comes up and starts giving him a lot of attention. She pursued him," Prior said.

Though both married, the two began having an affair shortly after meeting; according to Prior's opening statements, that didn't begin until January or February of 2019. Daybell was taken with Vallow's beauty and the two frequently spoke about their sexual encounters via phone, Wood said.

"She was the mirror collecting the grandeur he saw in himself," Wood said of Vallow.

Last year, Vallow was convicted of the same charges Daybell now faces and was found guilty on all counts. The prosecution in Vallow’s case described Vallow as a woman searching for money, power and sex — a mother caught in Daybell's clutches.

After Wood’s opening statements concluded, the court took a brief recess, during which Daybell and Prior had several exchanges at the defense table. Daybell smiled several times, often nodding vigorously after Prior spoke.

During his opening statements, Prior described Vallow as a sort of siren, "Miss Texas," a manipulative woman who gets what she wants and who drew Daybell into an inappropriate relationship. Before meeting Vallow, the only charge on Daybell's record was a speeding ticket in 2005, Prior said.

"Lori Vallow was a different story," Prior said.

ALEX COX

Vallow, at the time married to her third husband, had a very protective brother, Alex Cox. In Prior's words, he would do anything to "protect, aid and assist Lori and her endeavors." Cox died in 2019 of a bilateral pulmonary.

In 2007, Vallow's third marriage with Joseph Ryan was ending. She had accused Ryan of abusing her child, Tylee, and Cox assaulted Ryan.

"Facts suggest that Joseph Ryan feared for his life," Prior said. "It set the standard for the Alex Cox story."

In 2019, Cox was with his sister (Vallow), Tylee, J.J. and Charles Vallow. During an altercation, Cox took out a gun and shot and killed Charles Vallow. Daybell had nothing to do with the altercation, Prior said.

Vallow stood to gain $1 million in life insurance after her husband was killed, but the money never came to her because she was no longer the beneficiary, Wood said. Vallow and Daybell texted about the insurance money.

The Daybell trial will continue at 8:30 a.m. Thursday. The court will not meet on Friday.