A look at who’s who in the murder trial of slain kids’ mom
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BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Prosecutors say the mother charged in a triple murder case took part in a complex conspiracy that included unusual spiritual beliefs and efforts to kill those who stood in the way of her goals. Here, a look at the defendants and the first witnesses in the trial of Lori Vallow Daybell:
THE DEFENDANT:
Lori Vallow Daybell, 49, is a beautician by trade, a mother of three, and a wife — five times over. She’s pleaded not guilty to murder, conspiracy and grand theft charges in the deaths of her two youngest kids and her new husband’s previous wife.
Vallow Daybell’s first marriage, to a high school sweetheart when she was just 19, ended quickly. She married again in her early 20s, and had a son named Colby before divorcing. In 2001, Vallow Daybell married again, this time to a man named Joseph Ryan. The couple had a baby girl named Tylee in 2002, but divorced just a few years later. Ryan later died in his home of a suspected heart attack.
Charles Vallow, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, entered the picture several months later. Vallow Daybell joined the LDS church and the pair married in 2006. They later adopted Joshua Jaxon “JJ” Vallow.
But by 2019, that marriage had also soured. Charles Vallow filed for divorce, contending in court papers that Vallow Daybell also believed herself to be a deity tasked with helping to usher in the Biblical apocalypse.
The two were estranged but still married when Vallow Daybell’s brother, Alex Cox, shot and killed Charles Vallow outside his Phoenix suburban home.
Cox told police the shooting was in self defense, and was never charged in the case. Shortly after Charles’ death, Vallow Daybell moved to eastern Idaho with JJ, Tylee and her brother Cox.
Chad Daybell became her fifth husband on November 5, 2019 — roughly two weeks after his previous wife Tammy Daybell died under suspicious circumstances.
Meanwhile, JJ and Tylee were missing. They were last seen in September, and they were declared missing in November after extended family urged police to investigate. Their bodies were found the following year buried in Chad Daybell’s yard.
CHAD DAYBELL:
Daybell, 54, was also a member of the LDS church and a self-published author who wrote doomsday-focused fiction loosely based on church teachings. He married Tammy Daybell in 1990, and they had five kids.
Prosecutors say he met Vallow Daybell at a conference in Utah in 2018. The two purportedly felt an “instant connection” and claimed they had been married to each other in a past life, according to police records. Friends of the couple told investigators that the pair shared the same unusual beliefs, including that they could tell if someone had been taken over by an evil spirit.
Chad and Lori led a group of friends in trying to cast out the supposed evil spirits by praying and doing “energy work,” prosecutors said. Friends told police that in some cases they determined a person had become a “zombie,” fully controlled by the evil spirit. Vallow Daybell claimed the only way to get rid of a “zombie” was to destroy the person’s body, prosecutors say, and one friend told police she heard Vallow Daybell call the children zombies before they disappeared.
Content retrieved from: https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/capital-region/ap-top-news/2023/04/11/a-look-at-whos-who-in-the-murder-trial-of-slain-kids-mom.
