BOISE, Idaho– Jurors resumed deliberations Saturday on whether a man should be sentenced to death after he was convicted days earlier murder of his wife and his girlfriend’s two youngest children in Idaho.
Jurors decided whether Chad Daybell should be executed or sentenced to life in prison for the triple murder case, which began with a search for two missing children in 2019. The following year, their bodies were found buried in Daybell’s yard in eastern Idaho .
Both Daybell and his new wife, Lori Vallow Daybell, were charged with multiple counts of murder, conspiracy and grand theft in connection with the deaths of Vallow Daybell’s two youngest children, 7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow and 16-year-old. .. old Tylee Ryan. They were also charged with conspiracy and murder for the death of Daybell’s first wife, Tammy Daybell.
During a nearly two-month trial, prosecutors said Daybell was promoted unusual spiritual beliefs including apocalyptic prophecies and stories of possession by evil spirits to justify the murders.
He was sentenced on Thursday. Relatives of the victims gave emotional statements to jurors before they began deliberating on the trial’s sentencing guidelines Friday afternoon.
Daybell’s attorney, John Prior, argued during the trial that there was not enough evidence to link Daybell to the murders, and suggested that Vallow Daybell’s older brother, Alex Cox, was to blame. Cox died in late 2019 and was never charged Vallow Daybell was convicted last year and sentenced to life without parole.
Idaho law allows execution by lethal injection or firing squad, although executions by firing squad have never been used in the state.