FREMONT COUNTY, Idaho (TCD) — A jury has found 55-year-old Chad Daybell guilty of murder and several other charges for killing his first wife and his second wife’s two children in 2019.
East Idaho News reports Daybell was convicted of three counts of first-degree murder, three counts of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and two counts of insurance fraud in connection with the deaths of 16-year-old Tylee Ryan, 7-year-old Joshua “J.J.” Vallow, and 49-year-old Tammy Daybell. The jury is now in the sentencing phase to determine whether Daybell will serve life in prison without parole or be sentenced to death.
To determine whether he should receive the death penalty, the jury will be required to decide on aggravating factors, including whether the murders were done in a manner that was “especially heinous, atrocious or cruel, manifesting exceptional depravity.”
Daybell’s case has been in the courts for three years. He and his then-new wife Lori Vallow were indicted May 25, 2021. Vallow went to trial last year and was found guilty of killing her two children and conspiring to kill Tammy Daybell. She was handed three life sentences but still faces trial in Arizona for allegedly killing her fourth husband, Charles Vallow, The Associated Press reports.
Vallow and Daybell wed two weeks after Tammy Daybell was found dead in October 2019. Chad Daybell claimed she had been sick, but an autopsy report showed she died from asphyxiation. The Associated Press reports Vallow’s brother Alex Cox shot and killed Charles Vallow in July 2019. Cox is no longer alive.
The Rexburg Police Department conducted a welfare check on J.J. at Vallow and Daybell’s home on Nov. 26, 2019, but the couple told police he was at a family friend’s house in Arizona. Investigators, however, learned he had not actually been out of state. They executed a search warrant at the home the next day, but Vallow and Daybell “abruptly vacated their residence and left Rexburg.”
J.J. was last seen in school on Sept. 23, 2019.
Tylee and J.J.’s bodies were found June 9, 2020, but investigators reportedly determined they were killed in September 2019. The Idaho State Journal reports J.J. was found with a plastic bag over his head, while his arms and legs were bound with duct tape. Tylee’s body was dismembered and burned.
According to The Associated Press, Vallow and Daybell believed the apocalypse was coming and that people turned into “zombies” when their souls were possessed. They claimed the only way to save the soul was to kill the “zombie.”
ABC News reports Fremont County Prosecuting Attorney Lindsey Blake said during closing arguments, “Money, power and sex. That’s what the defendant cared about.”
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