Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell referred to her kids and their spouses as ‘obstacles’ before they were murdered, the cult mom’s trial heard today.
Texts show they plotted the killings of her husband Charles, her children JJ, seven, and Tylee, 16, and Daybell’s wife Tammy, FBI agent Doug Hart told jurors.
Vallow, 49, and Daybell, 54, also engaged in lengthy sexting sessions in which they described taking showers and lying in bed together naked as they carried out their affair after meeting at a doomsday conference in late 2018.
The couple are accused of killing JJ and Tylee and burying their bodies in in Daybell’s backyard in Rexburg, Idaho, in September, 2019. A month later Daybell’s wife Tammy was suffocated in bed. They married two weeks later in Hawaii.
Vallow is further accused of plotting the death of her estranged husband Charles who was shot by her brother in Arizona in July of that year. She is facing a separate trial over his killing.
Lori Vallow (pictured at an earlier court hearing) and Chad Daybell referred to her kids and their spouses as ‘obstacles’ before they were murdered, the cult mom’s trial heard today
Chad Daybell enters the courtroom during his preliminary hearing in St. Anthony, Idaho, on Monday, August 3, 2020. He is being tried separately
Tylee, 16, and JJ, seven, are shown with their uncle, Alex Cox, in what is believed to be the final photo of them, taken during a family trip to Yellowstone National Park on September 8, 2019
The State says Vallow wanted ‘money, power, sex’ and that she also used ‘those things to get what she wanted.’ Vallow, who faces life in prison if convicted, denies the charges against her. Daybell is being tried separately.
FBI agent Hart told the Ada County Courthouse in Boise that he seized two iCloud accounts belonging to Vallow under the usernames lori4style and lollytime and pored through her data after she met Daybell at a Preparing a People conference in St. George, Utah, on October 26, 2018.
‘It was apparent that they were very quickly after meeting involved in an illicit affair with one and other and they made plans to get married and share a life together,’ he told the court.
As part of their plan Vallow and Daybell discussed how to remove the ‘obstacles’ of her children and their respective spouses, Charles and Tammy.
Hart said: ‘There were several communications regarding JJ and Tylee that were relevant to their deaths. They discussed their deaths. After the affair began, there began to be communication regarding the deaths of Charles Vallow, Tammy Daybell, JJ Vallow and Tylee Ryan.’
Their messages were often highly sexualized – Daybell even writing Vallow a toe-curling erotic novel in the form of chapterized texts.
In one typical exchange – just three days after Vallow’s husband Charles was shot dead – Daybell tells the cult mom he wants to enjoy ‘naked activities’ with her.’
‘I need so badly to just gently kiss you …for hours,’ Daybell wrote on July 14, 2019. ‘It would likely lead to other activities.’
Vallow replied suggestively: ‘Likely or luckily?’
Daybell wrote back: ‘It would LUCKILY lead to nakedness.’
Through the text messages, agent Hart said he established that Daybell was the ‘quasi-religious leader’ of the cult and that Vallow acted as his conduit through which other members, like her brother Alex Cox, would seek advice. Cox, who died of natural causes in December, 2019, shot dead Charles Vallow and is also accused of participating in the murder of Vallow’s children.
‘Her position was right next to Chad Daybell. The two of them were in an elevated position and others would seek their advice and counsel as it related to alleged visions and so forth,’ Hart told the court.
Vallow and Daybell are accused of killing his wife Tammy (left) in October, 2019. Vallow is further accused of plotting the death of her estranged husband Charles who was shot by her brother in Arizona in July of that year. She is facing a separate trial over his killing.
Chad and Tammy Daybell pictured before she was murdered in October, 2019
The children’s bodies were discovered in shallow graves on Daybell’s property on June 9, 2020 – nine months after they vanished
He showed jurors texts exchanged between Cox and Vallow in which she referred to her ‘source’, meaning Daybell.
‘Can’t wait to share all the things I learned about you [kiss and heart emojis] wow U r gonna like it. It explains a lot,’ Vallow told Cox in March, 2019.
He replied: ‘Ok hurry up. Please.’
She wrote back: ‘Going to check everything with my source tonight to make sure I got this all right but it’s really good. We can talk about it tomorrow hopefully [heart emojis].’
In another exchange about a week later, Hart told the court that Vallow and Cox referred to her husband Charles as being possessed.
Cox wrote to his sister: ‘Correct. Charles body is alive. What did u learn?’
She replied: ‘A lot !! Still working on it. Will call u later.’
The FBI agent said: ‘We see very frequent usage of that particular term, “We are working on things”, and that is a direct reference to this belief that they were in a battle against zombies and dark entities so when they were talking about working on things they were talking about that.’
The court has previously heard how Vallow and Daybell referred to all of their alleged victims as being ‘dark’ and ‘zombies’ before their deaths. The twisted couple even scribbled down a ranking system with numbers denoting the extent to which someone was either ‘light’ or ‘dark’.
On July 9, 2019, two days before Charles Vallow was shot dead by Cox, Vallow texted her niece Melani Boudreaux saying: ‘It’s coming to a head! This week will change everything.’
The same day she said to Cox: ‘It’s all coming to a head this week. I will be like Nephi I am told. And so will you.’
Hart explained that Nephi is an ancient prophet referred to in the Book of Mormon who is instructed by God to slay Laban. The FBI agent summarized the oblique scriptural reference, telling jurors that Laban is the ‘bad guy.’
Lori Vallow (pictured at an earlier hearing) sat smiling – almost appearing to laugh at times – and whispered feverishly to her attorneys during Barattiero’s emotional testimony at the Ada County Courthouse in Boise on Wednesday
Dr Garth Warren revealed for the first time how JJ’s cause of death was ‘asphyxia by plastic bag over the head and duct tape over the mouth.’ The coroner suggested the boy had scratched his own neck as he struggled to break free
An Instagram post from Tylee with her mom dated May 14, 2017, when she was 14 years old
The jury were also shown texts in which Daybell told Vallow how his wife Tammy ‘would be gone.’
On July 13, 2019, Daybell told Vallow he was attending a Brigham Young University graduation ceremony for his children on the 23rd of that month.
‘I feel she will be gone by then, but I will still have that hoopla to deal with because a lot of … family are coming and will stay for July 24th,’ he wrote.
The following day, Daybell texted Vallow: ‘Good morning my most beautiful Lili. Thanks for joining me in the shower this morning. Wow. Getting ready to leave for my meetings. Does noon your time look like a time we could talk? I love you so immensely that the whole universe knows it. And very soon the people on this little blue globe will know it too.’
Hart explained that the pair often used figurative language suggesting they were together when they were physically in different places. In this case, Vallow was not actually in the shower with Daybell but he is imagining that she was.
Hart’s evidence regarding the iCloud messages was broken off due to time constraints and will resume on Monday morning.
Hart, who has since retired from the FBI, became involved in the case at the request of Rexburg PD on November 27, 2019. He began examining the iCloud accounts before the kids were found the following July – nine months after they vanished.
He examined some 4,500 text messages sent and recieved by Vallow after she met Daybell in the fall of 2019 through to November 2020, when activity ceased on the iCloud accounts.
Vallow’s children were missing for almost a year before their corpses were found buried in Daybell’s yard on June 9, 2020.
During the opening, prosecutor Lindsey Blake described how charred remains were all that was left of Tylee.
She told jurors: ‘You will hear it explained as a mass of bone and tissue. That’s what was left of this beautiful young woman.’
Tylee’s DNA was later found on a pickaxe and shovel in a shed on the property.
The key individuals in Lori Vallow’s tangled family tree, including her five husbands, two dead children and killer brother
JJ’s body was wrapped in trash bags and duct tape – the tape binding his arms in front of him and wrapping around his head. He had been suffocated inside a plastic bag.
The two children and Daybell’s previous wife Tammy were all killed because they stood in the way of the couple’s relationship, the State says.
‘Remember, the defendant will remove any obstacle in her way to get what she wants, and she wanted Chad Daybell,’ Blake told jurors.
‘The defendant used money, power and sex to get what she wanted.’
Jurors have heard from friends and relatives of Vallow that she and Daybell believed the children were ‘dark’ and referred to them as ‘zombies’ before they disappeared.
‘The common theme was the body has to be destroyed,’ Blake said. ‘The defendant and Chad used their self-proclaimed religious teachings to justify their actions to others — their actions from affair to murder.’
Prosecutors say the couple planned to use life insurance money from Tammy’s death, and that Vallow kept collecting and spending the children’s social security and benefits after they died.
The trial opened on April 10 and the State is expected to rest its case next week.
Vallow denies two counts of first-degree murder and three counts of conspiracy in the deaths of her two children and Tammy Daybell.
She further denies grand theft for allegedly collecting government benefits on behalf of her children after they were killed.
