Chad Daybell has been sentenced to death after an Idaho jury found him guilty of killing his wife and his girlfriend’s two youngest children.
Daybell, 55, a self-proclaimed prophet and “doomsday cult” author remained emotionless as he learned his fate. District Judge Steven W Boyce issued the sentence. The prosecution requested restitution in the amount of $130,000 and $300,000 to LifeMap Assurance Company and Primerica Life Insurance Company, which the judge approved.
Daybell was not ordered to pay any fines in the case.
The decision came two days after the jury handed down a guilty verdict on May 30, 2024 in the 2019 deaths of his wife Tammy Daybell, and Lori Vallow’s two children, Tylee Ryan, 16, and Joshua “JJ” Vallow, seven.
The 12 jurors deliberated for just under six hours after listening to two months of testimony that revealed a deeply disturbing tale of murder, unexplained deaths, apocalyptic cult beliefs, and bizarre claims of zombie children.
The Idaho man had been charged with three counts of first-degree murder, insurance fraud, and conspiracy to commit murder and grand theft. He was found guilty on all counts.
First-degree murder can be punished by death in Idaho but jurors must find that a statutory aggravating circumstance exists and no mitigating circumstances exist, which would make the imposition of the death penalty unjust.
In this case, the jurors found that the murders were “heinous, atrocious or cruel”.
Judge Boyce said he would not be analyzing the court’s rationale, stating that the evidence on the record has demonstarted the seriousness of Daybell’s crimes.
“Any lesser sentence would depriciate the seriousness of these offenses, because this life insurance was obtained based on the murders of individuals and procuring life insurance payouts,” he said.
The investigation into the deaths began five years ago, after JJ’s grandparents Kay and Larry Woodcock asked police to check on the child. Investigators soon realized both children were missing, and a multistate search ensued. The investigation soon took several unexpected turns.
Daybell and Vallow were having an affair when both of their spouses died unexpectedly, investigators said. Vallow’s husband, Charles, was shot to death by her brother Alex Cox in Arizona in July 2019; the brother told police it was in self-defense. He was not charged.
Vallow, her kids JJ and Tylee, and Cox subsequently moved to eastern Idaho to be closer to Daybell, a self-published writer of doomsday-focused fiction loosely based on Mormon teachings.
His wife at the time, Tammy Daybell, died in October 2019 from what was initially believed to be from natural causes. Just two weeks later, Daybell and Vallow were married on a beach in Hawaii, raising suspicion among law enforcement officials.
It was only after Vallow’s children were reported missing – and authorities began delving into the couple’s bizarre cult beliefs – that questions were asked about Tammy’s death and her body was exhumed for an autopsy – something the family refused initially.
It was determined she had died of asphyxia and Daybell was charged with her murder, as well as the murders of Vallow’s children, who were found buried in Daybell’s Rexburg backyard in June 2020, nine months after they went missing.
Prosecutors say it was Daybell’s “desire for sex, power, and money” that led to the killings and that he and Vallow justified the crimes by creating an apocalyptic belief system that people could be possessed by evil spirits and turned into “zombies.”
The only way to save a possessed person’s soul was for the possessed body to die, she said.
“Three dead bodies … and for what?” prosecutor Lindsey Blake told jurors during closing arguments on Wednesday. “Money, power and sex — that’s what the defendant cared about.”
But Daybell’s defense attorney, John Prior, told jurors that there wasn’t enough evidence to tie Daybell to the deaths.
He said police looked only for things they could use against Daybell rather than the actual facts of the case — and he claimed that Vallow’s late brother, Alex Cox, committed the crimes.
Prior pinned the murders on Cox and Vallow and said Daybell was manipulated by Vallow who he described in opening statements as a voracious and “very sexual” woman who lured him to do her bidding.
“This beautifully stunning woman named Lori Vallow comes up and she starts giving him a lot of attention,” Prior said of the couple’s first meeting at a religious convention in October 2019. “She pursued him. She encouraged him.”
Last year, in the same courtroom, Vallow was convicted of the three murders and sentenced to life in prison.
Jurors heard how she, Daybell and Cox were fuelled, in part, by their bizarre cult beliefs. Cox died of natural causes during the investigation and was never charged.
Like Vallow, Daybell himself never took the stand in his own defense. When Judge Boyce asked him if he wished to make a statement following his sentencing on Saturday, the death row prisoner leaned into a microphone and said “No”.