In a murder trial that’s captivated the country, prosecutors said Monday that Lori Vallow Daybell, the Idaho mother accused of killing her two youngest children and her husband’s late wife, was determined to “remove any obstacle” that stood in her way.
The deaths have drawn widespread scrutiny, speculation, and sensationalism and have been the subject of a Netflix docuseries. Vallow Daybell will spend life in prison if convicted, while her husband, Chad Daybell, who will be tried separately, could face the death penalty.
In front of 12 jurors and six alternates, prosecutors and defense attorneys each painted a vastly different picture of Vallow Daybell. Fremont County Prosecutor Lindsey Blake portrayed Vallow Daybill as someone who used “money, power and sex to get what she wanted.”
Meanwhile, Vallow Daybell’s state-appointed defense attorney Jim Archibald described Vallow Daybell as a “kind and loving mother” to her children who had a particularly deep interest in religion and the Bible.
He argued that prosecutors don’t really know what role Vallow Daybell may have had in the deaths.
Vallow Daybell and her husband both pleaded not guilty to a slew of charges, including murder, conspiracy and grand theft, in the deaths of her kids, Joshua “JJ” Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 16, who was last seen a few days before her 17th birthday in 2019.
The couple is also accused of killing Chad Daybell’s former wife, Tammy Daybell, who unexpectedly died in October 2019, about two weeks before Chad Daybell married Vallow.
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Prosecutors: Lori Vallow Daybell would ‘remove any obstacle’ to get what she wants
In a Boise courtroom, Blake told jurors that Vallow Daybell wanted Chad Daybell and that she would “remove any obstacle in her way to get what she wants,” even if that meant killing her own kids.
When family members reported the two children missing to authorities in November 2019, Vallow Daybell and her husband refused to cooperate with the investigation and left the state. The couple was later found in Kaua’i, Hawaii, in January 2020, without the children. The couple was later arrested in Hawaii and then extradited to Idaho.
The children’s bodies were found buried on Chad Daybell’s property in rural eastern Idaho in June 2020.
“Charred remains, that’s what was left of Tylee,” Blake, the prosecutor, told jurors during her opening statements. Blake then showed them a photo of human remains partially uncovered in a patch of dirt.
“You will hear it explained as a mass of bone and tissue. That’s what was left of this beautiful young woman,” Blake said.
The prosecutor added that some of Vallow Daybell’s friends will testify during the trial that Vallow Daybell said the children and Tammy Daybell were “dark” before their deaths, focusing on the couple’s doomsday-focused faith.
“It’s an incredibly complicated case with a deeply emotional set of facts that people, including children, are dead,” said David Leroy, a former Idaho attorney general and lieutenant governor. “The term, ‘Doomsday Mom’ is a very compelling reason to pay attention to what happened here.”
According to police reports, one friend said Vallow Daybell allegedly called her kids “zombies.”
“The common theme was the body has to be destroyed,” Blake told jurors. “The defendant and Chad used their self-proclaimed religious teachings to justify their actions to others — their actions from affair to murder.”
Later, Archibald, Vallow Daybell’s attorney, told jurors that his client’s religious beliefs only began to change after she met Chad Daybell, a religious author whose fictional books focused on the apocalypse and loosely based on the beliefs of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Archibald also told jurors that prosecutors don’t really know what happened in this case. He added that the criminal charges accuse Vallow Daybell of either directing, encouraging, assisting or participating in the murders.
“Did she kill, or did she assist, or did she encourage? Or, did she direct?” Archibald said. “They aren’t sure.”
Vallow Daybell initially ‘a doting mother’ whose demeanor changed, JJ’s grandma says
JJ Vallow’s grandmother, Kay Woodcock, was the prosecution’s first of two witnesses to take the stand Monday. Woodcock’s son is JJ’s biological father but he reportedly was unable to raise his son.
During her testimony on Monday, Woodcock cried after Madison County prosecutor Rob Wood showed her a photo of JJ taken when he was around 5 or 6 years old, sitting in a vehicle wearing a seatbelt.
“That is my beautiful grandson, JJ,” she said.
Woodcock testified that Vallow Daybell was once a “doting mother,” and told prosecutors the two women were “good friends,” KTVB-TV reported.
But Woodcock testified that her opinion of Vallow Daybell changed after Charles Vallow filed for divorce from the then-Lori Vallow in early 2019. Woodcock said her feelings further strengthened after Charles Vallow died.
And after Charles Vallow died, Woodcock testified that regular phone calls and visits with JJ dropped off. Woodcock testified only had contact with JJ three times after his father died. They were short FaceTime video calls.
The last call happened on Aug. 10, 2019, the month before JJ was last seen alive, Woodcock testified. It only was about 35 seconds long.
“‘Gotta go, Mama. Gotta go, Papa. Bye!'” Woodcock testified.
Woodcock said she tried to contact JJ for months with no answer. “Myself and Larry would call, email, text, voicemail, any way we could but I never got any response from (Vallow Daybell),” KTVB-TV reported.
Vallow Daybell also is charged in Arizona in connection with Charles Vallow’s death but has yet to enter a plea. Cox, who told police the shooting was in self-defense, died a few months after the shooting and was never charged.
Vallow Daybell’s trial centers on her mental capacity
Some experts said the trial will almost assuredly focus on Vallow Daybell’s mental state at the time of the killings
Prosecutors said Monday that Vallow Daybell and her husband further their alleged plan to kill the kids and Tammy Daybell to collect life insurance money and the children’s social security and survivor benefits.
Leroy, former Idaho attorney general and lieutenant governor, said Vallow Daybell’s defense team may have its hands full as Leroy notes he was one of the architects of Idaho’s 1982 law abolishing the insanity defense plea.
In other words, Vallow Daybell can’t use insanity as a defense, he said.
“Her mental state of mind typically will not come up in a very direct way in this case, unless the defense attempts to suggest she was in the mental power of a third person and not criminally involved in a conspiracy or a murder,” Leroy said.
Idaho does allow for a “guilty but insane” verdict from a jury.
“I think (defense attorneys) will stick with Vallow Daybell didn’t do it, she was someplace else and that any DNA obtained could have been placed there before the murders,” said John Delatorre, a forensic and disaster psychologist in Arizona and Texas, before the trial started.
During his opening statements, Archibald, Vallow Daybell’s defense attorney, told the jury his client has an alibi for the deaths, KTVB-TV reported.
When the children went missing, Vallow Daybell was in her apartment, Archibald said. He claims the children were murdered in Cox’s apartment.
When Tammy Daybell was found dead, Vallow Daybell was in Hawaii, said Archibald while attempting to counter the prosecution’s accusations, the TV station said.
“We haven’t been able to agree on what happened and we need you to decide it,” Archibald reportedly told jurors. “This charge is saying they’re not sure what happened, but they want you to be sure.”
Contributing: Associated Press