BOISE, Idaho – Chad Daybell has been found guilty of killing his wife’s two youngest children and his previous wife.
Prosecutors also charged the couple in connection with the October 2019 death of Chad Daybell’s wife, Tammy Daybell.
Prosecutors had said they would seek the death penalty if Daybell was convicted.
Vallow Daybell was convicted last year and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
The verdict capped a complex trial that spanned nearly two months.
The case began in September 2019, when extended family members reported the two children missing and law enforcement officials launched a search that spanned several states. The subsequent investigation took several unexpected turns.
Vallow Daybell, her kids JJ and Tylee, and Cox subsequently moved to eastern Idaho to be closer to Daybell, a self-published writer of doomsday-focused fiction loosely based on Mormon teachings.
Nearly a year after the children went missing, their remains were found buried on Chad Daybell’s property in eastern Idaho. Investigators later determined both children died in September 2019. Prosecutors say Cox conspired with Chad Daybell and Vallow Daybell in all three deaths, but Cox died of natural causes during the investigation and was never charged.
Anthropology expert testifies on Tylee’s burned remains
Fremont County prosecutor Lindsay Blake said Daybell, 55, styled himself a leader of what he called “The Church of the Firstborn” and told Vallow Daybell and others that he could determine if someone had become a “zombie.” Daybell also claimed to be able to determine how close a person was to death by reading what he called their “death percentage,” Blake said.
“They would be labeled as ‘dark’ by Chad Daybell. Their ‘death percentage’ would drop. Then they would have to die,” she said in her closing argument.
Prior said police looked only for things they could use against Daybell rather than the actual facts of the case — and he claimed that the children’s late uncle, Cox, committed the crimes. He noted that Cox had previously killed JJ Vallow’s father in Arizona and that the two children were the only witnesses to that shooting. He also said Cox tried to frame Daybell by burying the slain children in Daybell’s yard in eastern Idaho.
Defense witnesses included Dr. Kathy Raven, a forensic pathologist who reviewed reports from Tammy Daybell’s autopsy and said she believed the cause of death should have been classified as “undetermined.”
The Associated Press (AP) contributed to this report.
