Day 6: Recorded phone call with Daybells covered children, Antichrist, ‘natural desires’
Here’s the latest on the Chad Daybell criminal trial.
The 55-year-old father is accused of first-degree murder and conspiring to commit murder in the deaths of two of his wife’s children, 7-year-old JJ Vallow and 16-year-old Tylee Ryan, whose bodies were found buried in Chad Daybell’s property, and his then-wife, Tammy Daybell. He’s also charged with two counts of insurance fraud.
Daybell pleaded not guilty to the eight felonies against him.
The potential eight-week trial is expected to mirror the trial of his wife, Lori Vallow Daybell. Roughly 60 witnesses were called during her trial, and so far all of the witnesses called in Chad Daybell’s trial were also called in his wife’s trial.
FBI forensic accountant Michael Douglass, the ninth witness called by the prosecution, was back on the witness stand Thursday morning. It’s the second week of testimony.
3:15 p.m.: Defense questions statements made by witness
A repeated statement by Melanie Gibb during her hours-long testimony Thursday was that Vallow Daybell’s extreme religious beliefs were fueled by Chad Daybell.
John Prior, Daybell’s attorney,cast doubt on those comments during his cross-examination. He said Gibb had no way of knowing whether Vallow Daybell was telling her the truth, and that Gibb was getting all of her information from Vallow Daybell and had only spoken to Chad Daybell a few times.
“Lori has lied to you before?” Prior asked.
“Yes,” Gibb said.
Prior also questioned Gibb about her own lie to police regarding JJ’s whereabouts. Gibb initially told officers that JJ was with her after Vallow Daybell asked Gibb to lie to them. Gibb later confessed that she hadn’t taken care of JJ.
Gibb said she felt an “obligation” to tell the police the truth, but Prior said her obligation couldn’t have been that strong if she didn’t tell the police the truth immediately.
“It was a difficult moment for me, and that’s just what I did,” Gibb said.
A recorded phone call between Gibb and the Daybells was played in court, in which Vallow Daybell told Gibb about what she did with the children. Prior pointed out that Vallow Daybell spoke as if she acted alone in her comments about her children or her beliefs.
“Lori Vallow’s comments were not ‘we will’ or ‘they will’ — it was ‘I will’ in the singular, Prior asked.
Just before court adjourned for the day, Prior began to question Gibb about a weekend she and her then-boyfriend David Warwick spent at Vallow Daybell’s Rexburg apartment.
On the night of Sept. 23, 2019, Warwick said he had one of the worst nightmares of his life while staying at the apartment, but when Gibb attempted to find the Daybells that night to give Warwick a religious blessing, she couldn’t find them, according to testimony during Vallow Daybell’s trial.
It was the last night anyone saw JJ alive.
When Prior asked Gibb about whether she had asked Vallow Daybell about where JJ was, Gibb said Gibb told Prior on Thursday that she couldn’t remember. Prior said Gibb was only having a hard time remembering certain details while he was cross-examining her, not during the prosecution’s line of questioning.
Prior told 7th District Judge Steven Boyce he wasn’t going to be able to wrap up his cross-examination Thursday.
“I unfortunately have quite a ways to go now,” Prior said. Boyce said he could continue to cross-examine Gibb on Friday.
2:30 p.m.: Prosecution witness said she has memory problems
Melanie Gibb, a former friend of the Daybells, texted Madison County Prosecuting Attorney Rob Wood that she wanted to make sure The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was “protected” during her testimony.
John Prior, Chad Daybell’s attorney, during his cross-examination, said there were over 340 text messages between Gibb and Wood in 2020, from May to November, including text messages regarding an interview Gibb did with Dateline correspondent Keith Morrison.
“Keith the guy from Dateline and I want to make sure the Church is protected,” Gibb wrote in her text message, which was read out loud in court. “He’s done a good job so far. That’s why I feel comfortable talking to him.”
Gibb — who participated in the religious casting to expel “dark” spirits from people’s bodies with Vallow Daybell — during cross-examination said she wanted to make sure it was clear that the Daybells’ religious beliefs weren’t in line with the beliefs of the Church of Jesus Christ.
Prior also asked Gibb whether the visions that Daybell said he had were a common practice in the Church. Gibb said that while visions are common, she’s never had them before. Gibb’s husband, David Warwick, who was called as a witness during Vallow Daybell’s trial, also has visions, she added.
Gibbs also added that concepts of people being “light” or “dark” are inconsistent with the Church of Jesus Christ.
Prior also questioned Gibb about her memory problems. She previously told police that she had a difficult time remembering things and didn’t always get dates or facts right. Gibb is the 10th witness called by the prosecution.
1 p.m.: ‘Not some sort of master plan,’ Chad Daybell says in recording
In late November 2019, the Daybells’ former friend, Melanie Gibb, said she got a call from Chad Daybell asking her to ignore a call from police, anticipating that they would ask about JJ’s whereabouts. Tylee and JJ were killed in September 2019, according to law enforcement.
Gibb said Chad Daybell sounded “nervous.” Vallow Daybell later asked Gibb to tell police that JJ was with her and that they’d gone to see a movie — even asking her to go down to a local movie theater and take a picture, according to Gibb’s testimony.
Gibb said she initially lied to police and told them JJ had been with her but returned him to their mother. The Daybells believed law enforcement members were “dark translated beings,” Gibb added.
“At this point in time did you have concerns about JJ’s well-being?” Fremont County Prosecuting Attorney Lindsey Blake asked.
“Yes,” Gibb said.
“Did you have concerns about Tylee’s well-being?” Blake said.
“Yes,” Gibb said, adding that she eventually told law enforcement “everything.”
But she said she was still left without answers, and by Dec. 8, 2019, Gibb decided to call the Daybells. In a roughly 20-minute phone call that Gibb recorded — and was played in court — Gibb questioned the Daybells about JJ.
“I was wondering what happened,” Gibb asked Vallow Daybell.
“I had to move him somewhere else, because of her actions,” Vallow Daybell said, referring to Kay Woodcock, JJ’s grandmother. Vallow Daybell said that Woodcock was trying to take JJ from her, despite previously telling Gibb that she planned to give JJ to Woodcock, Gibb said.
Kay and Larry Woodcock, JJ’s grandparents, were the ones who reported JJ’s disappearance to the police. The Woodcocks traveled from Louisiana to Idaho to attend Vallow Daybell’s criminal trial and also have been attending Chad Daybell’s trial.
Vallow Daybell said on the recorded call that “most” of her family was working against her, and both Chad and Lori Vallow Daybell said they were just trying to keep everyone protected.
“Is JJ safe?” Gibb asked.
“He is safe and happy,” Vallow Daybell responded, later adding that she knew “exactly” where he was.
The phone call then got argumentative, as Gibb questioned why Vallow Daybell would have involved her in the lies to law enforcement.
“That’s not what a friend does,” Gibb said.
Vallow Daybell said she did exactly what God instructed her to do.
“I believe that you have been very deceived by Satan,” Gibb responded. “I mean Tammy dies, and then your husband died, and then (JJ’s) missing. It just doesn’t sound like God’s plan.”
Vallow Daybell then accused Gibb of being influenced by “someone dark.”
Chad Daybell said that all the theories around Tammy Daybell’s death were “just not true,” adding that his children were present after her death and that her heart was falling her.
“She just passed away,” Chad Daybell said in the recording. “All these conspiracy theories just make me sick to my stomach — just absolutely sick.”
Chad Daybell said he’d known for years — long before he met Vallow Daybell — that Tammy Daybell would die young and that he’d have a second part to his life.
“This is not some sort of master plan,” Chad Daybell added.
Gibb pushed back and said the Daybells should be able to understand her concerns. Gibb then compared Vallow Daybell to Korihor, who was considered an Antichrist in the Book of Mormon and who didn’t believe in Jesus Christ, according to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Gibb said that Korihor tried to lead a group of people and that he was influenced by his “carnal” and natural desires. Vallow Daybell sounded taken aback on the call.
“Well, honey, you got a lot of natural desires,” Gibb told her.
“That’s what you think is me?” Vallow Daybell said in the recording. “Are you kidding me right now?”
“It’s in the scriptures,” Gibb said, comparing the two.
After the recording ended, Gibb testified that she wasn’t always comfortable with the Daybells’ beliefs, particularly the concept that some people were “dark” or their beliefs that they had been reincarnated into new lives.
“I never 100% believed it,” Gibb said, adding that she was open to some of the ideas but wasn’t fully devoted.
10:30 a.m.: Chad Daybell fueled Lori’s extremist beliefs, former friend says
From the moment Chad and Lori Vallow Daybell met, they “seemed to be attracted to each other,” Melanie Gibb, Vallow Daybell’s former friend, said during her testimony Thursday.
Gibb said the Daybells met in October 2019 during a Preparing a People conference in Utah. The fringe organization, while not affiliated with the church, is made up of Latter-day Saints members who were preparing for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
Gibb said quickly after they met, Vallow Daybell began talking about reincarnation and claimed she and Chad Daybell had been married in previous lives.
The Daybells had a months-long affair after they met, while both of them were still married to their spouses. While Vallow Daybell had been interested in past lives, her extreme religious beliefs began to grow and change as she got to know Chad Daybell, Gibb said.
Family members and friends had similar accounts during their testimony in Vallow Daybell’s trial, stating that the Arizona mother was once a devoted member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints turned toward extremism after meeting Chad Daybell.
Lori Vallow Daybell, LDS member, holds extreme beliefs. What role did they play in murders?
The Daybells believed that people could be either “light” or “dark,” and based on a rating system — which Chad Daybell created — and could determine whether someone was a good or bad person, Gibb said. She added that people could switch from light to dark.
“They might be light, for example, and then some maybe evil entity could enter them and they would become dark,” Gibb said.
The Daybells also held beliefs the world would end in July 2020, and that they would lead a group of 144,000 people who the Book of Revelation in the Bible said would be saved during the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, according to witness testimony during Vallow Daybell’s trial.
Gibb added that Vallow Daybell thought it was her mission to lead and gather women for this group.
When asked where Vallow Dayell got this information, Gibb said it always came from Chad Daybell. Gibb said Vallow Daybelll’s fourth-husband, Charles Vallow, was the first person to be identified as “dark.”
Vallow Daybell believed that Charles Vallow and JJ were going to die in a car accident, and when that didn’t happen, Gibb said. Chad Daybell told Lori that Charles Vallow became “dark.”
Vallow Daybell — along with Gibb and some other women — began to participate in castings to rid the “evil spirit” from Charles Vallow’s body, according to Gibb’s testimony. Those castings began in early 2019 until just before Charles Vallow’s death.
The women performed several castings on Charles Vallow, but he didn’t die, and Vallow Daybell said it was because another spirit had entered his body — information Gibb said that was provided to Lori by Chad Daybell.
“Was your understanding that if the casting was successful, the body would naturally expire?” Fremont County Prosecuting Attorney Lindsey Blake asked.
“Yes,” Gibb responded.
“Were you ever told that there would be violence done to the body?” Blake said.
“Never,” Gibb said.
In July 2019, Charles Vallow was shot and killed by Vallow Daybell’s brother, Alex Cox. Gibb said Cox’s “mission in life” was to protect Vallow Daybell and that Cox was designated as her protector.
Cox initially claimed the shooting was self-defense, but authorities later alleged that Cox and Vallow Daybell conspired to kill Charles Vallow, and Vallow Daybell has been charged in Arizona with conspiracy to commit murder. Cox died in 2019 from natural causes.
Chad Daybell wasn’t charged with any crimes in Arizona.
After Charles Vallow died, Gibb said Vallow Daybell seemed “happy” and that just a few weeks after the fatal shooting, Chad Daybell had traveled to Arizona to spend time with Vallow Daybell.
“They seemed super excited to be together,” Gibb said, adding that they were planning a future together.
9:30 a.m.: No financial link between the Daybells, FBI accountant says
John Prior, Daybell’s attorney, during his cross-examination questioned whether Douglass found any financial link between Chad and Lori Vallow Daybell. Douglass responded that the Daybells never joined bank accounts — even after they were married.
“Chad Daybell has nothing to do with any of the transactions above?” Prior asked, pointing to several financial transactions Douglass highlighted during his testimony.
“No,” Douglass responded, later adding that the Daybells lived together after they were married.
Douglass during his testimony also briefly mentioned an attempted purchase by Vallow Daybell of Malachite wedding rings in August 2019 — two months before Tammy Daybell was killed.
Prior pointed out that the rings could have been for Vallow Daybell’s brother, or her niece, as they were both planning to get married around that time. The Daybells were wearing Malachite rings when they got married in November 2019.
Prior also asked Douglass why he tracked several disposable phones purchased by Daybell. Douglass said during his testimony Wednesday that Daybell purchased at least four disposable phones between October 2018 and September 2019.
“If you’re having an affair with another woman, and you’re married, that’s a pretty ideal way to hide the fact that you’re having an affair by using a phone like that. Wouldn’t you agree?” Prior asked.
“If you say so, sure,” Douglass said, later adding that the phone could be used for that purpose.
Madison County Prosecuting Attorney Rob Wood asked about any other purpose for a disposable phone.
“Would that be a good way to hide a crime?” Wood asked.
“Yes,” Douglass said.
Chad Daybell murder trial in Boise begins. Here’s what to know about the case
The Idaho Statesman will have a reporter covering the trial at the Ada County Courthouse providing live, daily updates at idahostatesman.com. You can also follow criminal justice reporter Alex Brizee on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @alex_brizee or breaking news reporter Sally Krutzig at @sallykrutzig.
