What Lori Vallow’s guilty verdict means for doomsday preacher husband Chad Daybell – who could face death penalty if also convicted of murder when he stands trial
Daybell, 54, her alleged co-conspirator is being tried separately and is not expected to face a jury until 2024. He denies the charges.
Legal analysts said that though standing trial second usually provides an advantage because a defendant can see what prosecutors will throw at him, the weight of evidence against him and the highly-publicized trial would count against him.
Randy Zelin, a Cornell Law School professor, told DailyMail.com: ‘There is a huge advantage to the defendant that goes second, but in this case, it’s the advantage of you’re gonna try to catch sand and turn it into a ball.’
Asked if Lori’s guilty verdict made a difference for Daybell, the former white collar defense lawyer and prosecutor said: ‘Probably nothing because he’s gonna get convicted. I don’t think it’s a matter of if, I think he’s gonna be convicted.
‘We had these bombshell text messages between the two of them talking about how “it’s happening” – the mountain of evidence, the text messages, the Google searches, all of this evidence is overwhelming.
‘She goes down in flames, he goes down in flames.’
Then there’s the question of the death penalty. Vallow faces life in prison after prosecutors took capital punishment off the table.
But her husband could still face the death penalty as a ruling is yet to be made.
The judge ruled before trial that Vallow would not face the death penalty because the State had failed to adequately provide the defendant with copies of materials and evidence that the prosecution intended to use at trial.
Further adding to his woes, Rahmani said that as a woman Vallow was more sympathetic – generally men fair worse in murder trials – and Daybell was the leader of their twisted cult.
The attorney said that generally retrials or separate cases give defendants an advantage because ‘they can take the sting out of it’.
However, the facts in the case are ‘overwhelming and horrific’ and referred to Vallow’s failure to put up a defense in her case as ‘a slow guilty plea.’
Rahmani added: ‘The jurors in the Chad Daybell case will know that so there is gonna be significant implicit pressure on them to return a guilty verdict.’
Although the jury will be asked if they are aware of the Vallow case – and should recuse themselves if they are – in reality it is unlikely all of those impaneled will have followed the instruction.
Former prosecutor Lori Murray explained that ‘the cases were severed for a reason and that’s so the jury does not deem one of them guilty by the actions of the other. I highly doubt her conviction would be allowed to be mentioned in his trial.’
Darryl Cohen, a criminal defense attorney, added: ‘When a child dies a little piece of all of us dies, so you’ll have these men and women in the jury who’ll have a child. They will put themselves in the kids’ place and they will see the evil and the viciousness as opposed to just the evidence.
Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told DailyMail.com: ‘The only question is, is Chad gonna get the death penalty? Jurors that are death penalty qualified are much more likely to return a guilty verdict as they’re generally more conservative.’
Rahmani explained that when the death penalty is on the table, jurors must be comprised of those who are not categorically opposed to capital punishment.
Studies have shown that death-qualified jurors are more likely than non-death-qualified jurors to vote for conviction when assessing the same sets of facts.
‘A court is nothing less than a theatre, it’s just the stakes are different.’
He said if Daybell had ‘had any sense at all’ he would plead guilty but his ego won’t let him.
‘He thinks he’s a great prophet and by watching her trial he’ll think he can gain some advantage,’ Cohen said.
He said that the publicity wasn’t going to help because ‘anybody in Idaho, actually anybody who watches any TV is gonna know’ about the case.
Asked what impact a conviction would have, Cohen said: ‘It will have no impact at all because all of these texts and calls about the kids and calling their spouses obstacles.’
He suggested Daybell perhaps appeared worse than Vallow because he was the quasi-religious leader of their cult. She would come to him for advice.
‘Most people are thinking thinking that Lori Vallow was under his spell,’ Cohen said.
Timeline of Lori Vallow’s and Chad Daybell’s alleged crimes
July 11, 2019: Lori Vallow’s husband, Charles Vallow, is killed by her brother, Alex Cox, in Arizona. Police initially rule that Alex acted in self defense but reopen the case months later after the children are reported missing.
August, 2019: Lori moves children JJ and Tylee to Rexburg, Idaho, close to where her future husband Chad Daybell lives with his wife Tammy.
September 8, 2019: Tylee is seen alive for the last time during a trip to Yellowstone National Park with Lori, JJ and Alex. In the following weeks Lori tells people that her daughter is studying at Brigham Young University’s Idaho campus.
September 23, 2019: The last time JJ is seen at his school in Rexburg. Lori emails the school the following day claiming she is moving the family to California for a new job.
October 2, 2019: Brandon Boudreaux, the ex-husband of Lori’s niece Melani Pawlowski, is targeted in a drive-by shooting in Arizona. Police identify the vehicle carrying the shooter as a Jeep registered to Charles Vallow, Lori’s late husband.
October 19, 2019: Chad’s wife Tammy, 49, dies at their Idaho home. An obituary states that she passed away peacefully in her sleep. Chad declines an autopsy and her death is listed as due to natural causes.
October 25, 2019: A friend of Tylee receives a vague ‘miss you’ text from her phone but says that it didn’t sound like the teen.
November 5, 2019: Lori and Chad tie the knot on a beach in Kauai. Receipts indicate that Lori purchased her own wedding ring from Amazon nearly three weeks prior to Tammy’s death.
November 26, 2019: Out-of-state relatives ask Idaho police to perform a welfare check on JJ. Lori and Chad claim he is in Arizona with relatives and ask their friend, Melanie Gibb, to lie and say she took the boy there for Thanksgiving. Police soon learn that no one has seen JJ or Tylee, since September.
November 27, 2019: Police execute a search warrant related to the children at Lori’s home and discover that she and Chad have fled Idaho.
December 11, 2019: Tammy’s body is exhumed from a Utah cemetery and her death is reclassified as suspicious.
December 12, 2019: Lori’s brother, Alex Cox, is found dead in a bathroom in his Arizona home. Months later an autopsy determines that he died of natural causes while he had the overdose drug Narcan in his system.
December 21, 2019: Rexburg police issue the first press release about JJ and Tylee, revealing they believe their disappearance could be linked to Tammy’s death and asking the public for information.
December 24, 2019: Lori and Chad issue a statement through an attorney saying they love their son and daughter and look forward to addressing ‘allegations once they have moved beyond speculation and rumor’.
December 30, 2019: Police accuse Lori and Chad of lying to investigators and say they believe the couple know where the kids are or what happened to them.
January 3, 2020: Police search Chad’s home in Salem and remove 43 items, including tech devices and journals. They also comb over sections of the snow-covered yard with rakes and metal detectors.
January 26, 2020: Lori and Chad are seen for the first time in months as police serve them with two search warrants in Kauai. Lori is also served with a court order to produce the children to authorities in Idaho in five days. The couple are approached by the media while officers serve the documents and refuse to say anything about the children.
January 30, 2020: Lori misses the court deadline to produce the children to Idaho authorities.
February 20, 2020: Lori is arrested in Kauai and charged with two felony counts for desertion and nonsupport of dependent children, and one misdemeanor count each for resisting and obstructing an officer, solicitation of a crime, and contempt of court.
March 5, 2020: Lori is extradited to Idaho, where she is held on $1million bond at Madison County Jail.
March 17, 2020: Lori professes her innocence in a statement through her attorney as two other members of her defense team quit and the judge removes himself from the case.
March 24, 2020: Court documents filed in the divorce of Lori’s niece Melani and her husband Brandon Boudreaux allege that Lori told people she believed her children were zombies before they disappeared.
April 9, 2020: Authorities reveal they are investigating Lori and Chad for murder, attempted murder and conspiracy in connection with Tammy’s death.
June 9, 2020: Police search Chad’s home in Salem for the second time and discover human remains in the backyard. Chad is taken into police custody and charged with destruction or concealment of evidence.
May 25, 2021: Lori and Chad are charged with first degree murder in the deaths of the children. Chad is also charged with first-degree murder in the death of his wife Tammy.
May 27, 2021: Lori is deemed incompetent to stand trial on the murder charges in Idaho.
August 5, 2021: Prosecution announces it will seek the death penalty for Chad.
April 11, 2022: Lori is restored competency. Criminal proceedings against her in Idaho are ordered to continue.
April 14, 2022: Lori is taken to the Madison County Jail in Rexburg, Idaho, by Fremont County Sheriff officers.
April 10, 2023: Lori Vallow goes on trial for the murders of JJ, 7, and Tylee, 16.
