Convicted murderer Chad Daybell was sentenced to death in Idaho on Saturday, two days after he was found guilty for the killings of his first wife and two stepchildren in a case that included bizarre “doomsday” religious beliefs.
Prosecutors said they were seeking the death penalty because of the “especially heinous, atrocious or cruel” factors in the murders of Joshua “JJ” Vallow, who was 7, and Tylee Ryan, who was 16 when she was last seen, and Tammy Daybell, 49. Jurors agreed and said they found Chad Daybell demonstrated “utter disregard for human life” and would be a continued threat to society.
“The court is directed that the defendant would be sentenced to death on those counts,” said Judge Steven Boyce.
Daybell did not display any emotion as he listened to the court clerk read the jury’s decision, and he declined when offered the chance to speak in court. He was also sentenced to 15 years in prison for each of two counts of insurance fraud.
“We are pleased with the outcome and that justice has been served for the victims in this case,” Fremont County prosecutor Lindsey Blake said after the death penalty was handed down.
Kay Woodcock, JJ’s grandmother, said in a victim impact statement that JJ would have celebrated his 12th birthday this week. Woodcock had custody of the boy before he was adopted by Lori Vallow Daybell and her former husband.
“I never got enough of him. Now I’ve had all I will for the rest of my life, and only have memories,” Woodcock said in court. “There were so many lives he touched that feel the immense pain and loss of him being gone.”
The children were last seen in September 2019, and a massive search spanning multiple states drew national attention later that year. Their bodies were found on Daybell’s property in Idaho months later, and he was also charged in connection of the death of his first wife who died under “suspicious circumstances” in October 2019.
The children’s mother, Lori Vallow Daybell, was sentenced last summer to life in prison without the possibility of parole for first-degree murder and conspiracy in both children’s deaths, conspiracy to commit the murder of Tammy Daybell, and an additional 10 years for grand theft. The death penalty was not on the table for the children’s mother.
Investigators and witnesses close to Daybell testified about his and Vallow Daybell’s beliefs the children had become “zombies” and that the couple was on a mission to rid the world of zombies as part of what they called the “Church of the Firstborn.”
The couple got married just weeks after Tammy Daybell died, causing suspicion about the circumstances of her death, which was previously thought to be due to natural causes.
Vallow Daybell’s previous husband, Charles Vallow, was shot and killed by her brother Alex Cox in Arizona, where the family lived at the time earlier in 2019. Cox said he killed Vallow in self-defense, and Cox was never charged before he died in December 2020, The Associated Press reported.
