Chad Daybell’s argument against death penalty: I did what my wife said

Chad Daybell, the Idaho man accused of three murders, is arguing he should not face the death penalty because he was manipulated by his wife.

Daybell, 55, has not yet gone to trial for the 2019 killings of his first wife and two of his second wife’s children.

Lori Vallow Daybell, 50, was convicted in May and received three consecutive life sentences, for killing the children and conspiring to kill Tammy Daybell. Shortly before her trial, the judge ruled out the possibility of the death penalty. She had invoked her right to a speedy trial, and her attorneys argued they did not have enough time to prepare for a capital case.

The motion filed Thursday, Nov. 9, by Chad Daybell’s lawyer cites that outcome: “Ms. Vallow set the conspiracy in motion … and she remained in charge of her plan throughout. … Mr. Daybell has lesser culpability than his co-defendant, who did not face the death penalty.”

The document liberally quotes the transcript of Vallow’s trial, in which prosecutors and witnesses portrayed her as the driving force behind the killings of her children JJ Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 16. “The State has asserted [Mr. Daybell] was ‘not going to act without Lori saying so,'” the motion says.

Vallow’s two children were last seen alive in September 2019, shortly after they moved with their mother from Arizona to the Idaho community where the Daybells lived. Tammy Daybell, 49, died on Oct. 19, 2019, and barely two weeks later, Chad Daybell and Vallow married.

The children’s bodies were found in June 2020 on Chad Daybell’s property.

At Vallow’s trial, attorneys for both sides brought up the couple’s “weird” religious doomsday beliefs. One former friend testified that Vallow believed people in her life had been taken over by evil spirits and turned into zombies — including her two youngest kids.

Vallow has been held in Idaho prison since her sentencing. Late last month, Idaho’s governor approved her extradition to Arizona, where she is to stand trial on two counts of conspiracy to commit murder. One count is for the death of her fourth husband, Charles Vallow, whom her brother fatally shot in July 2019, and the other is for a shooting apparently targeting her niece’s husband.

The brother, Alex Cox, whom prosecutors say also aided in the children’s killings, died in December 2019.