Testimony in the Lori Vallow Daybell trial led to these key revelations in the "doomsday mom" murder case
Editor's Note: Some testimony contains graphic descriptions. Reader discretion is advised.
The trial of Lori Vallow Daybell, accused along with her husband Chad Daybell in the murders of her children and Daybell's first wife, ended May 12 as a jury found the so-called "doomsday mom" guilty on all charges.
Vallow Daybell was sentenced to life without parole.
Prosecutors say the couple used "doomsday" beliefs involving zombies to justify murdering the children, along with Daybell's first wife, Tammy Daybell.
Chad Daybell's trial is set to start on April 1, 2024.
Vallow Daybell's daughter, 16-year-old Tylee Ryan, and adopted son Joshua "JJ" Vallow, 7, were declared missing in 2019 after relatives could not get in touch with the children. They were found in 2020 on Chad Daybell's property, whom their mother had married after the death of Daybell's wife Tammy. Vallow Daybell was also found guilty of conspiracy to murder Tammy Daybell.
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The couple, who are being tried separately, are accused in the three murders. Vallow Daybell was also found guilty of theft charges for collecting Social Security payments on behalf of her children.
Both Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow Daybell pleaded not guilty to all charges.
The dozens of witnesses for the prosecution discussed the couple's fringe religious beliefs and their blooming relationship as their spouses each died, as well as details about finding the children's bodies. Here are some of the most compelling moments of testimony in Vallow Daybell's trial.
JJ Vallow's grandfather Larry Woodcock weeps as Det. Ray Hermosillo describes finding the boy's body
Det. Ray Hermosillo, an investigator on the case with the Rexburg, Idaho, Police Department, testified about law enforcement finding the children's remains on Chad Daybell's property as JJ Vallow's grandparents, Kay and Larry Woodcock, watched from the courtroom.
"As they began removing the top layer of soil, it began to expose three large white rocks. Uh, and at that point, uh, there was a strong odor of, uh, through my training experience that was a decomposing body," Hermosillo told the court.
He testified he saw a little boy in red pajamas — witnesses have said the last time JJ was seen alive he was wearing red pajamas — with a white plastic bag around his head and several layers of duct tape from his chin to his forehead. His arms were folded across his chest and duct taped with several layers of duct tape and his feet were also bound with duct tape, Hermosillo said.
"He had a white and blue child's blanket, um, placed on top of him," the detective testified.
Larry Woodcock was reportedly crying throughout the graphic testimony.
Lori Vallow Daybell calls Chad Daybell as investigators are searching his property for JJ and Tylee's remains, recordings reveal
Prosecutors played audio of a phone call between Vallow Daybell, who at the time was being held at the Madison County Jail on child abandonment charges, and Chad Daybell while investigators were searching Daybell's property for the children's remains.
Jurors heard Daybell tell Vallow Daybell investigators were on the property, and he asks her to pray. He also says, "I love you."
Melanie Gibb testifies about "evil spirits" and "zombies"
Lori Vallow Daybell's friend Melanie Gibb told jurors that Vallow Daybell described some people as possessed or as "zombies." Gibb said Vallow Daybell claimed some people were "light" and others were "dark," meaning they had been possessed by evil spirits. Some of those people labeled as "dark" included Vallow Daybell's fourth husband Charles Vallow (referred to as "Ned" — the evil spirit that supposedly took over his body), who was shot and killed by Vallow Daybell's brother Alex Cox, and her children, Tylee and JJ, who were found buried in Chad Daybell's backyard.
Gibb also testified that Vallow Daybell said she and Daybell had been married in past lives.
Prosecutors played a phone conversation in which Gibb confronted Vallow Daybell about JJ's whereabouts months after she had last seen the boy. In it, Vallow Daybell says she loves Gibb "with all my heart."
"I appreciate those words, but if you really love me, you wouldn't have told the police that I had JJ with me. That's not - that's not what a friend does. I mean, that just makes me look weird and it - it just - it's not safe for me. That doesn't look good. You need - you had to think of my welfare if you love me," Gibb said in the recording, which she eventually gave police.
"I do and I did exactly what I felt the Lord was instructing me to do. And I appreciate you and I love you. And I would never do anything to harm you, and you can have all of this confirmed to you by the Lord," Vallow Daybell responded in the recorded conversation.
Zulema Pastenes, the wife of Alex Cox, testified he feared being the "fall guy"
Daybell and Vallow Daybell had convinced her brother, Alex Cox, that his divine mission was to protect her. Cox, who shot and killed Charles Vallow claiming self-defense, later told his wife Zulema Pastenes he felt the pair were making him their "fall guy."
"I said, 'Fall guy for what? What is it that, that you have done? What, what have you done that you would be the fall guy for?' It was like I kept pressuring him and I was so frustrated because he wasn't answering me," she said. "So I would walk away and he would say something, and then I would come back and I — he was — and then I would pressure him again. And then he said — one of the times when I was walking away from him, he said — Zulema, either I am a man of God or I am not."
That conversation, Pastenes testified, came the day before Cox died suddenly.
Friend testifies Vallow Daybell said she was "done with JJ" and claimed Charles Vallow was having an affair
April Raymond, Vallow Daybell's former friend from Hawaii, testified about a visit from Vallow Daybell and Tylee to her home in Hawaii in early 2019, where Raymond said Vallow Daybell told her that Charles Vallow was having an affair and that she needed a place to stay.
When a prosecutor asked where JJ was, Raymond replied, "She said that she was done with JJ and that Charles and his sister Kay would need to figure it out." Raymond also was questioned about Ned, the demon Vallow Daybell claimed was inhabiting Charles Vallow's body.
While JJ and Tylee were missing, Chad Daybell tells a Hawaii realtor the couple has no children, emails show
Emails between Daybell and a realtor in Hawaii, introduced as part of testimony by Rexburg Police Det. Chuck Kunsaitis, note the couple is interested in seeing a property. Daybell asks if the owners would "be interested in leasing this property to a clean couple with no pets or children."
The email was sent three days after the couple was married, and before JJ and Tylee were reported missing.
Lori Vallow Daybell's son weeps as jailhouse phone call played in court
Colby Ryan, the eldest and only surviving child of Lori Vallow Daybell, confronted his mother about his siblings' deaths in an emotional phone call prosecutors played for the jury shortly after Ryan took the stand. "You've ripped my heart out and you've ripped out everyone in this family's heart out," he said on the call, which was made after the bodies of JJ Vallow and Tylee Ryan were found buried in Chad Daybell's backyard in 2020, and after Vallow Daybell was jailed in connection with the crime.
He cried after seeing pictures of his slain siblings, and told jurors about how text messages Tylee regularly sent him changed in tone and punctuation in the weeks after she first disappeared but before she was reported missing.
In the phone call, he confronted his "murderous mother."
"I trusted you. I gave you every chance I could, past my own limitations as a human being. I pushed past all of — everything to try to get to you, to help my own mother. You lied to me, specifically to me more times than I can count about this," he said in the call. "To know that they're gone and you knew? And my phone's being texted by my little sister who's not even alive? My little brother, who's the sweetest little kid ever?"
During cross-examination, Vallow Daybell's attorney asked Ryan if Vallow Daybell taught him about the alleged extreme religious beliefs raised by prosecution witnesses the previous week. Ryan replied "no" when asked if he was taught about zombies, casting out evil spirits and light and dark scales.
Lori Vallow Daybell says she "deserved to find happiness" after children's remains found in disturbing recording played in court
Lori Vallow Daybell was heard on a recording played in court saying she deserved to find happiness, as her sister, Summer Shiflet, testified. Shiflet was heard sobbing and screaming on a jailhouse call with Vallow Daybell after the children's remains were found by police in June 2020.
"I would have taken Tylee and JJ in a heartbeat and everybody else would've too, you know that," Shiflet said on the call. On the stand, Shiflet said she had a close relationship with her sister and spoke to Vallow Daybell in February 2020, two months after Vallow Daybell's children were reported missing.
GHB found in JJ Vallow's system, forensic pathologist reveals
Dr. Garth Warren, chief forensic pathologist with the Ada County Coroner's office, testified that a toxicology test on a sample of JJ Vallow's liver that was part of the boy's autopsy revealed the child had low levels of gamma hydroxybutyric acid, a so-called party or date rape drug often called GHB, and alcohol in his system. The test also showed caffeine and theobromine, which is found in chocolate and tea.
Warren said the amount in JJ's system was "inconclusive," and he could not say whether he had intentionally been given the substance or it was naturally occurring.
His official cause of death was asphyxiation by a plastic bag, Warren said.
Tylee Ryan's DNA found on pickax, expert testifies
Katherine Dace, a forensic biologist with the Idaho State Police, told the jury that they had tested samples from several tools found in Chad Daybell's shed. A partial DNA profile from samples on one of the shovels and from a pickax, she said, matched Tylee Ryan.
Tylee Ryan's remains were found in a grave on Chad Daybell's property, and her body had been burned and dismembered, witnesses have testified.
Hair on tape binding JJ Vallow matches mother, DNA expert says
JJ Vallow's body was found buried in Chad Daybell's back yard, wrapped in a black plastic bag and duct tape. A hair stuck to that tape matched Lori Vallow Daybell, DNA expert Keeley Coleman testified Monday.
Coleman, an analyst for Bode Technology, said she tested the partial DNA profile from the hair sample against three DNA samples: Vallow Daybell, Tylee Ryan and Vallow Daybell's friend Melanie Gibb, who has also testified at the trial. The sample from the hair matched Vallow Daybell, she said.
"The probability of randomly selecting a random individual in relation to that profile 1 is 71 billion," Coleman said.
JJ's grandfather Larry Woodcock, who has been attending the trial, told reporters outside the courthouse the hair evidence was a "gotcha moment" and "the bow that tied it together" for Vallow Daybell's involvement.
Friend testifies Lori Vallow Daybell threatened to kill her
Former friend Audrey Barattiero testified Wednesday testified about sessions that Lori Vallow Daybell led to cast evil spirits out of people, including Tammy Daybell. Barattiero said she had been staying with Vallow Daybell in Idaho when she decided to dissolve their friendship. When she went to pack her bags and leave, Vallow Daybell started laughing and threatened her, she testified.
"She said to me, 'You're so naive and too trusting. You're like a little child — you'll believe anything anyone will tell you. And she said, you think the world is all unicorns and rainbows. You go around helping people and serving them. Well, I've got news for you. Not everyone is a good person and not everyone can afford to be so nice and kind,'" said Barrattiero. "Then she said — she threatened to kill me."
When asked about how, Barattiero testified: "She said that she would cut me up and something about, that she wasn't in the mental place to do that but would get herself in that place to be able to do it. But that she didn't want to have to, because it would be so messy — that there would be so much blood and bleach and something about trash bags. She would bury me where no one would ever find me."
Casting out evil spirits — and Satan
Barattiero also testified that Vallow Daybell believed she could cast out spirits and that Chad Daybell's wife Tammy had essentially an evil spirit living inside her — describing Tammy Daybell's spirit caged and her body occupied by the evil spirit. Barattiero said she was invited to participate in something called a casting ceremony, in which an evil spirit is cast out.
"She was saying that she was in a cage or a jail or something like this, and it was the idea of like, she needs to be freed and help because some person's overtaken her body, Barattiero testified.
Ian Pawlowski, who was married to Vallow Daybell's niece, testified that Vallow Daybell told him she could cast out Satan.
"Lori said that she was able to cast Satan out by folding him up into the shape of a taco and locking him in a box in Antarctica," he said.
Texts discuss plans for Vallow Daybell's children
The couple frequently texted, evidence introduced by the prosecution revealed, including about Vallow Daybell's children. The two had a rating system that characterized how close a person is to death, and believed that when an evil spirit possessed someone, their spirit separated from their body — moving them closer to death. The couple also believed they could remotely cause harm to people with an evil spirit.
Former FBI Special Agent Douglas Hart testified about the texts recovered from Vallow Daybell's iCloud account, which he said discussed what Chad Daybell said was "an orchestrated plan to take the children." A text from Vallow Daybell to her brother Alex Cox talks about "trying to get to the bottom of what we need to do to eliminate them completely."
In one July 2019 text, Daybell said he was instructed to focus his efforts on the spirit he believed was occupying Tylee. "I turned up the pain to 10 and placed a spiritual virus in her," he told Vallow Daybell, indicating Tylee was at a 0.13 — close to death on their rating scale.
Hart said there was nothing on the iCloud account about Tylee after Sept. 8, 2019 and nothing about JJ after Sept. 23, 2019.
Budding relationship revealed by romantic, intimate texts
Many of the texts shown in court reveal the burgeoning relationship between Vallow Daybell and Daybell. Each expressed missing the other in texts, some sent after Vallow Daybell's husband Charles Vallow died but before the death of Tammy Daybell. The two exchanged romantic texts filled with heart and lip emojis — and Daybell even sent a lengthy series of texts that tell a romantic story of the two meeting, having been married in past lives and experiencing "eternal bliss and telestial desire" with the woman he described as "an exalted goddess who had returned to earth to perform a special mission."
In other romantic — and sometimes explicit — texts shown in court, the two say they miss each other and want to be together.
"It's making me so happy to read about our life that I am finally going to dance. Missing you and loving you from afar!!," reads one text sent by Vallow Daybell in July 2019.
"It was great. I feel free again. I love you more than ever and can't wait to be with you forever. I'm begging father and mother. That's my job tonight!," Daybell wrote.
In an August 2019 text, Daybell expressed frustration at his situation.
"Tonight I figured out who I feel like. I'm a grown-up version of Harry Potter, who has to live with the Dudleys in his little space under the stairs," Chad Daybell wrote. "Every few weeks I get to escape and have amazing adventures with my Goddess lover, but then I have to return to my place under the stairs, feeling trapped. But I sense permanent freedom is coming!"
The two also discuss the status of Charles Vallow's life insurance, with Vallow Daybell telling Daybell her husband had changed the beneficiary of his insurance to his sister Kay Woodcock without telling her.
"I'll still get the 4000 a month from SS," she said in a text, referring to the Social Security payments her children receive.
To keep up with the latest trial developments, listen to the day's testimony each evening on CBS News' YouTube Channel and weekly updates on the "48 Hours" podcast.
