Warning: This story contains graphic and disturbing details.
Lori Vallow Daybell had a strange system of beliefs. She participated in an extremist faith. She had odd and nontraditional thoughts about the sanctity of marriage — both hers and others'. And she believed that her children, 16-year-old Tylee Ryan and 7-year-old Joshua "JJ" Vallow, had turned into zombies.
The last one, the belief, that her children had been possessed, allegedly caused her to take their lives at the end of 2019. Now, nearly four years later, Vallow Daybell and her husband Chad Daybell are on trial for those gruesome murders … in addition to a few others.
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JJ's grandparents reported him and his sister missing in 2019.
Vallow Daybell’s two children were last seen in September 2019, reported People. They vacationed with their mother and uncle, Alex Cox, that month in Yellowstone National Park.
In November, JJ’s grandparents called the authorities in Rexburg, Idaho, and reported the two children missing. By June 2020, the remains of JJ and Tylee were found buried on Daybell’s property.
Detectives found the children's remains on Lori's husband's property.
Earlier this week, Ray Hermosillo, an Idaho police detective, testified in Vallow Daybell’s murder trial. He described the day the children’s remains were discovered.
“A few of us got on our hands and knees and began digging around this moist section of dirt," he said. As they were digging, they noticed the smell of a decomposing body. “We eventually uncovered bits and pieces of Tylee — whom we assumed was Tylee — that had been burned. There were pieces of bone, charred flesh, just globs of flesh that kept falling apart,” Hermosillo said.
The scene was so grisly, investigators were only able to work for a few minutes at a time. They continued digging and found a partial skull. Later, they located the remains of JJ, wrapped inside black bags underneath a tree in the backyard. The grass in that area was shorter than the rest of the yard.
Daybell will also be charged.
When investigators arrived at Daybell’s home that morning, he was still asleep. His son, Mark, woke him up. Afterward, Daybell went outside and sat in his car before making a phone call.
According to Hermosillo’s testimony, while Daybell was on the phone, he looked over his right shoulder. Eventually, after the excavation had begun, he drove off at high speed. Vallow Daybell and Daybell were indicted in May 2021 on nine criminal charges including murder and/or conspiracy charges in three deaths, reported NPR. The two will be tried separately.
Lori is also charged with two additional murders.
In addition to the deaths of her two children, Vallow Daybell is also accused of conspiring to murder Tammy Daybell, Chad Daybell’s late wife. Tammy Daybell was found dead in her home in October 2019. One month later, he married Vallow Daybell in Hawaii.
Daybell is Vallow Daybell's fifth husband. In another case in Arizona, Vallow Daybell was indicted on on conspiracy murder charges for allegedly arranging for her brother, Alex Cox, to shoot and kill her fourth husband Charles Vallow in July 2019. Both Vallow Daybell and Cox claimed the shooting was self-defense. Cox died in December 2019 of a heart attack, reported People.
Both Vallow Daybell and Daybell benefitted from the deaths of those around them.
Prosecutors argue that Vallow Daybell and Daybell were obsessed with “end times” and doomsday scenarios. The two believed they were religious figures who could rate people to determine their level of dark energy.
Texts from the couple discussed Tammy Daybell being in limbo and “being possessed by a spirit named Viola.” Prosecutor Lindsey Blake told the jury, “The defendant used 'casting' that involved prayer and energy work,” the East Idaho News reported. “Often this casting didn't work and the beliefs evolved to zombies. A common theme was the body had to be destroyed."
Vallow Daybell’s close friend Melanie Gibb says she heard Vallow Daybell say that Tylee had become a zombie after she refused to babysit her younger brother. Later, Vallow Daybell reportedly believed that JJ had become a zombie as well.
The couple, who were part of the Church of the Firstborn, believed they were tasked with ridding the world of zombies. But more than a religious mission, the couple have used these three deaths to collect money by way of federal benefits and insurance payouts.
Vallow Daybell received Social Security funds for the care of her children and did not report their deaths. The month before Tammy Daybell died, Daybell signed paperwork to increase the life insurance policy on his wife to the highest amount allowed.
Both Vallow Daybell and Daybell have pleaded not guilty to all charges. If convicted, they each could spend life in prison.
