US woman with ‘doomsday’ beliefs found guilty in children’s deaths

BOISE, Idaho - A jury in Idaho found Lori Vallow Daybell guilty on Friday of murdering two of her children and of conspiring to murder her husband’s former wife in a case that drew widespread attention for what prosecutors described as her “doomsday” religious beliefs.

A sentencing date has not been set. Before the trial started, Judge Steven Boyce, of Idaho’s 7th Judicial District, granted a request from Vallow Daybell’s lawyers to take the death penalty off the table.

The trial, in Boise, began on April 3, after years of delays. Vallow Daybell had initially been declared not competent to stand trial and was required to undergo psychiatric treatment.

In opening statements, prosecutors described her as a negligent mother who believed she was on a “religious mission” that she viewed as being more important than caring for her children.

Prosecutors said she believed her children were “zombies” possessed by evil spirits.

By Wednesday, weeks into the trial, the prosecution had called about 60 witnesses, according to a local news station, Fox 10. Closing arguments were delivered on Thursday.

Vallow Daybell, 49, did not testify in her own defence, and her lawyers rested their case without calling a single witness, Boise State Public Radio reported. Her lawyers told the judge that they did not believe the state had proved its case.

Mr Boyce had banned cameras from the courtroom throughout the trial at the request of Vallow Daybell’s lawyers. But he allowed the verdict to be streamed online on Friday.

Vallow Daybell, 49, and her husband, Chad Daybell, 54, had been indicted by a grand jury, and had pleaded not guilty in connection with the deaths of two of Vallow Daybell’s children, Tylee Ryan, 16, and Joshua Vallow, 7, known as JJ.

In addition to being convicted of first-degree murder in the deaths of the children, and of grand theft, Vallow Daybell was also found guilty of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in the death of Ms Tammy Daybell, Chad Daybell’s former wife. He has been charged with first-degree murder in that death.

Tylee and JJ were reported missing in November 2019 by JJ’s grandparents. Officers with the Rexburg Police Department in Idaho attempted a welfare check and later executed search warrants at the apartment complex where Vallow Daybell and her husband lived, but the authorities said the couple seemed unconcerned with the children’s whereabouts.

In February 2020, Vallow Daybell was arrested in Hawaii on a warrant issued by the authorities in Idaho, after, they said, she had not cooperated with the effort to find the missing children.

In June 2020, investigators found human remains buried on Chad Daybell’s property in Idaho that were later identified as belonging to his wife’s missing children.

At Vallow Daybell’s trial, detective Ray Hermosillo of the Rexburg Police Department described photographs of the children’s remains. A DNA analyst testified that a strand of hair found stuck to duct tape wrapping JJ’s body matched his mother, according to The Associated Press.

Former friends of Vallow Daybell spoke about the couple’s purported religious beliefs at the trial. One, Ms Melanie Gibb, said that Vallow Daybell believed that evil spirits could turn people into “zombies” by taking over their bodies, and that she called JJ and Tylee “zombies,” the AP reported.

Mr Hermosillo said at the trial that Tylee’s remains had been burned and packed into a bucket that was buried elsewhere on Daybell’s property.

Daybell was arrested and charged with concealing evidence, and both he and Vallow Daybell have been in custody since they were arrested. The two were being tried separately. NYTIMES