(CN) — Jury selection in the murder trial of Chad Daybell began this week at the Ada County Courthouse in Boise, Idaho, marking the beginning of the end of a lengthy investigation into the tragic and bizarre deaths of two children and Daybell’s former wife.
Daybell, 55, faces several counts of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, grand theft by deception and insurance fraud. The charges — delivered by a Fremont County grand jury in 2021 — stem from a bizarre series of events involving Daybell’s doomsday beliefs and the deaths of his former wife and the two youngest children of his current wife.
The case began in 2019 when law enforcement began investigating reports that the children of Lori Vallow Daybell — 17-year-old daughter Tylee Ryan and adopted 7-year-old son JJ Vallow — had not been seen by family in weeks but were not reported missing by their mother. Police found Lori Vallow and Daybell in Hawaii, where they had just gotten married while a search was underway for their children — and just two weeks after the death of Daybell’s former wife.
Authorities eventually located the children’s remains in Daybell’s backyard in 2020, and further investigation linked the couple to other mysterious deaths.
The first is the death of Vallow’s third husband Joseph Ryan. While Ryan appeared to have died from a heart attack in 2018, law enforcement reportedly began to look deeper into the matter when the investigation into the missing children intensified.
In 2019, Vallow’s fourth husband Charles Vallow was shot and killed by Alex Cox, Vallow’s brother. The police initially determined that the shooting was in self-defense before reopening the case. Cox died of natural causes in December 2019.
Daybell’s former wife Tammy Daybell was found dead at the couple’s Idaho home in October 2019, a death that was at first listed as natural after Daybell reportedly declined an autopsy.
By the time Vallow and Daybell were named suspects, revelations the two belonged to a doomsday cult had surfaced. Before the children’s disappearance, Vallow reportedly asked Daybell, a self-published doomsday author, to determine the “light or dark spirits” of JJ and Tylee.
In October 2018, when both Daybell and Vallow were still married to other people, Daybell reportedly sent Vallow an email containing a rubric that could be used to determine the light or dark spirit value of the children.
Daybell reportedly believed in a number system that suggested an individual was either possessed by light or dark spirit. Those with two or three denominations were “fluid” and could “change sides during earth life,” and those with a 4.1 rating or above “rarely switched sides.”
Daybell reportedly told Vallow in the email that Tylee was a 4.1 dark spirit and JJ was 4.2 light spirit. The dark spirits, they believed, turned people into “zombies” that needed to be killed.
Daybell's email was reportedly sent to Vallow less than 11 months before the children disappeared. Additional text messages between the couple revealed plans to “take care of the children” and included an odd message from Chad to Lori one afternoon that he had shot a raccoon and buried it in their pet cemetery.
These exchanges, coupled with GPS data, brought police to Chad’s east Idaho property, where they found Tylee burned and buried in a bucket in the pet cemetery mentioned in the messages. JJ was also buried on the property, bound in duct tape with a plastic bag over his head and still wearing the pajamas he was last seen in. A strand of Lori’s hair was recovered from the duct tape around JJ and DNA from Tylee was found on a nearby pickax.
The search also led police to investigate the death of Tammy, especially since Daybell had taken out a larger life insurance policy on her. He also told Vallow while they were having an affair that Tammy was not going to be here much longer. Police conducted an autopsy of Tammy and found she had died from asphyxiation.
Authorities charged Vallow and Daybell in the murders of Tammy, JJ and Tylee in 2021. Both pleaded not guilty.
Following a lengthy trial in 2023, Vallow was convicted of murder, conspiracy and grand theft. She is now serving three life sentences without parole and has since been extradited from Idaho to Arizona to face additional conspiracy to commit murder charges in the death of Charles Vallow and the 2019 attempted murder of Brandon Boudreaux, who had been married to Vallow's niece.
Daybell requested his trial be separate from his wife’s and waived his right to a speedy trial. He is specifically accused of three counts of first-degree murder, three counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder — two with grand theft by deception — and one count of insurance fraud. If convicted, Daybell could face the death penalty or a sentence of 10 years to life in prison.
Idaho District Judge Steven Boyce commenced jury selection in Daybell’s trial on Monday with Daybell present. Alongside Daybell’s attorney John Prior, prosecuting attorneys Lindsey Blake, Rob Wood, Ingrid Batey and Rocky Wixon are now tasked with selecting 50 potential jurors for a final group of 18. Six jurors will serve as alternates, while the rest will comprise the 12-person jury.
The date of opening statements depends on how quickly the court can advance jurors who do not report undue hardships or conflicting biases. As of noon Wednesday, the court has advanced 29 jurors, leaving 21 spots to be filled.
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