Idaho man Chad Daybell to be tried for 3 deaths including children who were called ‘zombies’
BOISE, Idaho– The trial of a man accused of killing his wife and his girlfriend’s two youngest children begins this week in Idaho, serving as the second act in a bizarre case that has attracted worldwide attention and has already resulted in a life sentence for the man. mother of the children.
Chad Daybell’s trial is expected to last 10 weeks. Jury selection will begin in Boise on Monday. The 55-year-old self-published author is charged with three counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of Tammy Daybell, 7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow and JJ’s big sister, Tylee Ryan, who was last seen during a few days before her 17th birthday.
The younger children’s mother, Lori Vallow Daybell — who married Chad Daybell shortly after the deaths — was convicted last year and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
The couple claimed they could tell if people were possessed by dark spirits that could turn them into “zombies,” former girlfriend Melanie Gibb testified in court. They believed that the only way to get rid of a zombie was to destroy the possessed person’s body by killing him or her.
The children’s bodies were found buried in Chad Daybell’s yard in eastern Idaho in the summer of 2020.
Chad Daybell is also charged with insurance fraud in connection with Tammy Daybell’s death and two counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and grand theft by deception in the children’s deaths.
If convicted, he could face the death penalty.
Daybell has pleaded not guilty. Last week, his attorney John Prior told KIVI-TV in Boise that Daybell is ready to move forward with the case and “wants to tell his story.”
Two days later, 7th District Judge Steven Boyce issued a gag order, preventing any attorneys or parties in the case from talking about it until after jury selection and opening statements.
Chad and Lori Daybell were originally scheduled to stand trial together, but in 2022, Prior asked the court to split the cases, saying the co-defendants will have “mutually antagonistic defenses.” The legal term generally means that a jury must not believe one defendant in order to believe another.
“Our version of the facts of this case will be very different from what Ms. Vallow and her legal counsel will present,” Prior told the judge, who later agreed to split the cases.
The grim case began in the fall of 2019, after extended family members noticed that Lori Vallow’s two youngest children had apparently disappeared, prompting police to launch a search. The ensuing months-long investigation spanned several states and took several grim and unexpected turns.
Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell were having an affair when both of their husbands died unexpectedly, investigators found. Vallow’s husband was shot and killed by her brother in Arizona in July 2019, and the brother told police it was in self-defense.
Tammy Daybell died in her sleep in November 2019. The untimely death was initially due to natural causes, but was later found to be caused by asphyxiation according to an autopsy. Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell married just two weeks after Tammy Daybell died, surprising family members and authorities.
The couple’s friends later told detectives that the couple also had unusual religious beliefs, including that they had been reincarnated and were tasked with gathering people together before a Biblical apocalypse.
Lori Vallow Daybell called her two youngest children zombies before they disappeared in September 2019. A friend would later testify at her trial, Gibb testified.
Prosecutors say Lori and Chad Daybell embraced these doomsday-oriented beliefs to justify the deaths of her children and his wife, but it was all part of a scheme to remove all obstacles to their relationship and obtain money from survivor benefits and life insurance.