Jurors listened to never-before-heard jail phone calls in a Boise, Idaho courtroom on Wednesday that revealed “doomsday” author Chad Daybell told his wife Lori Vallow that he texted her dead brother, Alex Cox.
Daybell, 55, is on trial for the 2019 murders of his former wife Tammy, and Vallow’s children, Tylee Ryan, 16, and JJ, seven. The children were found buried in Daybell’s Idaho backyard nine months after they went missing in September 2019.
Daybell told Vallow in the call that he texted “Ray,” a known alias of Vallow’s brother, a detective testified. The call happened in June 2020, a day before the bodies of the children were found on Daybell’s property.
At this point, Cox had been dead for six months. He died in December 2019 of what police determined were natural causes.
Prosecutors say the couple conspired with Cox to carry out the murders as part of their doomsday cult beliefs and that Daybell’s “desire for sex, power, and money” led to the murders. But his defence attorney claims he was manipulated by Vallow.
Last year, Vallow was convicted in the three murders and sentenced to life in prison. Jurors heard how she, Daybell, and Cox were fuelled, in part, by their bizarre cult beliefs.
If convicted, Daybell faces the death penalty or life in prison.
Chad Daybell appears to choke up as 911 call from wife’s death played in ‘cult prophet’ murder trial