Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell ‘may face DEATH penalty’ as they’re charged with murder after ‘kids buried’
CULT mom Lori Vallow and her husband Chad Daybell have been indicted on murder charges nearly a year after the remains of her two children were found buried in a backyard.
An Idaho grand jury indicted Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow on several counts Tuesday, including first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and grand theft in connection to the kids’ deaths.
Chad Daybell has also been charged with the death of his ex-wife, Tammy Daybell. Both face charges of conspiracy to commit murder in Tammy’s death.
Her death was originally thought to be from natural causes, but investigators reopened the case and her body was later exhumed in December of 2019.
Vallow and Daybell, a former pastor, were members of an apparent “doomsday cult” and married just two weeks after Daybell was widowed.
Vallow previously lived in East Valley, Arizona, before moving to Rexburg, Idaho, in August 2019 after her estranged husband, Charles Vallow, was shot dead by her brother, Alex Cox.
The following month, in September 2019, her two children, 17-year-old Tylee Ryan and 7-year-old JJ Vallow, vanished without a trace.
A police investigation was launched, and Vallow fled to Hawaii with Daybell once cops started pressing her on Tylee and JJ’s whereabouts.
Throughout the probe, Vallow maintained that her children were safe and living with family members in Arizona.
She was arrested in February 2020 on charges of deserting and abandoning her children.
Just over four months later, JJ and Tylee’s bodies were found buried in Daybell’s backyard in Fremont County, Idaho.
The latest charges against Vallow and Daybell were confirmed by prosecutors in a press conference on Tuesday, May 25, which would have been JJ’s ninth birthday.
A grand jury returned the indictments on Monday, prosecutors said.
The pair were already in prison on a slew of charges related to the children’s disappearance, including evidence tampering and obstructing a police investigation.
The death penalty is apparently on the table for both Vallow and Daybell, KSLTV reports.
“We know many members of the community may feel that progress on this case has been slow,” said Fremont County prosecutor Lindsey Blake on Tuesday.
“Due to the ongoing safety restrictions imposed by the courts during the pandemic, we just recently were given permission to present information to the grand jury for their review.
“I want to assure everyone that despite the delays, we have been working diligently to pursue justice for the victims in this case, to ensure we have the evidence required to prove the facts beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law,” she added.
Late last week, Vallow was deemed indigent by a judge, meaning she isn’t required to pay her legal fees.
The ruling was made on Friday by Seventh District Court Judge Steven Boyce during a Zoom hearing.
Afterwards, JJ’s grandmother, Kay Woodcock, spoke to local media, revealing that Vallow has a history of financial difficulties.
“She’s never been good at money management,” she told the Rexburg Standard Journal.
Police first began investigating Vallow and Daybell in late 2019 after relatives reported that JJ and Tylle hadn’t been heard from since September.
JJ was last seen alive at Rexburg’s Kennedy Elementary School on September 23, 2019.
The following Day, Vallow contacted the school to say she was withdrawing him from class and would instead be homeschooling him. He wasn’t seen or heard from again.
Tylee Ryan, meanwhile, was last seen on September 8, 2019 at Yellowstone National Park with her brother, mom, and her uncle, Alex Cox.
Her older half-brother, Colby Ryan, received two Venmo payments from Tylee on October 10 and October 16, with a message reading “we love you.”
Colby Ryan didn’t hear from her again, with his calls and texts going unanswered.
Vallow and Daybell then married in Hawaii in November 2019.
Their case came to national prominence after police confirmed they were also investigating the couple over the deaths of four other people linked to them in recent years.
In April 2018, Vallow’s third husband, Joseph Ryan, died of an apparent heart attack.
In July 2019, her fourth husband, Charles Vallow, was shot dead by her brother, Alex Cox, who claimed self-defense and was never charged.
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In November 2019, Chad’s previous wife, Tammy Daybell, died of unknown causes in her sleep, and Chad married Vallow just two weeks later.
In December 2019, Alex Cox was found collapsed on a bathroom floor at his home in Gilbert, Arizona and was later pronounced dead at the scene.
His death came just a day after police exhumed the body of Tammy Daybell and reopened an investigation, and police have said he may have been involved in her death.