Chad Daybell sentenced to death for murdering his wife and Lori Vallow's children

Chad Daybell was sentenced to death after an Idaho jury found him guilty of murdering his wife and his girlfriend's two youngest children.

Daybell, 55, a self-proclaimed prophet and author of the “doomsday cult,” remained unmoved when he learned of his fate. District Judge Steven W Boyce handed down the sentence. The prosecution requested restitution in the amount of $130,000 and $300,000 from LifeMap Assurance Company and Primerica Life Insurance Company, which the judge approved.

Daybell was not ordered to pay a fine in that case.

The decision came two days after the jury returned a guilty verdict on May 30, 2024, in the 2019 deaths of his wife Tammy Daybell and Lori Vallow's two children, Tylee Ryan, 16, and Joshua “JJ” Vallow , seven years.

The 12 jurors deliberated for just under six hours after listening to two months of testimony revealing a deeply disturbing story of murders, unexplained deaths, apocalyptic cult beliefs and bizarre claims about child zombies.

The Idaho man had been charged with three counts of first-degree murder, insurance fraud and conspiracy to commit murder and robbery. He was found guilty on all counts.

First-degree murder can be punished by death in Idaho, but jurors must find that there is a statutory aggravating circumstance and no mitigating circumstances, which would make it unfair to impose the sentence of dead.

In that case, jurors found the killings to be “heinous, atrocious or cruel.”

Judge Boyce said he would not analyze the court's reasoning, saying the evidence in the record demonstrated the seriousness of Daybell's crimes.

“Any lesser sentence would devalue the seriousness of these offenses because this life insurance was obtained on the basis of killing individuals and obtaining life insurance payouts,” he said.

The investigation into the deaths began five years ago, after JJ's grandparents, Kay and Larry Woodcock, asked police to check on the child. Investigators soon realized both children were missing and a multi-state search ensued. The investigation quickly took several unexpected turns.

Daybell and Vallow were having an affair when both their spouses died suddenly, investigators said. Vallow's husband, Charles, was shot and killed by his brother Alex Cox in Arizona in July 2019; the brother told police it was in self-defense. He has not been charged.

Vallow, his children JJ and Tylee, and Cox then moved to eastern Idaho to be closer to Daybell, a self-published author of apocalyptic fiction loosely based on Mormon teachings.

His then-wife, Tammy Daybell, died in October 2019 from what were initially thought to be natural causes. Just two weeks later, Daybell and Vallow were married on a beach in Hawaii, arousing the suspicions of law enforcement officials.

It was only after Vallow's children were reported missing – and authorities began looking into the couple's strange cult beliefs – that questions were asked about Tammy's death and her body was found. was exhumed for an autopsy – which the family initially refused.

She was determined to have died of asphyxiation and Daybell was charged with her murder, as well as the murders of Vallow's children, who were found buried in Daybell's backyard in Rexburg in June 2020, nine months after their disappearance.

Prosecutors say it was Daybell's “desire for sex, power and money” that led to the murders and that he and Vallow justified the crimes by creating an apocalyptic belief system that people could be possessed by evil spirits and transformed into “zombies”.

The only way to save a possessed person's soul was to put their body to death, she said.

“Three corpses…and for what?” prosecutor Lindsey Blake told jurors during closing arguments Wednesday. “Money, power and sex, that’s what mattered to the accused.”

But Daybell's defense attorney, John Prior, told jurors there was not enough evidence to link Daybell to the deaths.

He said police were only looking for evidence they could use against Daybell rather than the actual facts of the case — and he claimed Vallow's late brother, Alex Cox, committed the crimes.

Prior blamed the murders on Cox and Vallow and said Daybell was manipulated by Vallow, who he described in opening statements as a voracious and “very sexual” woman who lured him into doing what she she wanted.

“This beautifully stunning woman named Lori Vallow comes along and she starts paying him a lot of attention,” Prior said of the couple's first meeting at a church convention in October 2019. “She pursued him. encouraged him.

Last year, in the same courtroom, Vallow was convicted of all three murders and sentenced to life in prison.

Jurors heard how she, Daybell and Cox were fueled, in part, by their strange cult beliefs. Cox died of natural causes during the investigation and was never charged.

Like Vallow, Daybell himself never spoke up in his own defense. When asked by Judge Boyce if he wanted to make a statement after his sentencing Saturday, the death row inmate leaned into a microphone and said “no.”