48 Hours - The Secrets of Chad Daybell's Backyard - Encore

Episode Date: July 24, 2022

The Daybell children claim their father was framed for the murders of JJ and Tylee. "48 Hours" contributor Jonathan Vigliotti reports.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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ConstantContact.ca This case elicits such an anger. These were two beautiful kids. Tylee and JJ, who were brutally murdered, who would do something like this and why would they do it? A grand jury just indicted a mom and her husband on murder charges for the deaths of her two children, who were found buried in the stepdad's backyard. Lori Vallow Daybell and her new husband, Chad Daybell, have been called the doomsday couple. Monsters. Murderers. The penalty for the most serious charges range from life in prison to the death penalty.

Prosecutors claim the couple used their belief in doomsday scenarios to justify the killings. Everything that's happening, it eats at the soul a bit. This group says the gruesome case is far from over. The time has come that we need to share our story. After a year of public silence, I think about it every day. Chad Daybell's children spoke out for the first time to 48 Hours. It was just so heartbreaking.

My father needs someone to be a voice for him, to let people know what's real, what we know. This became the most famous missing persons case in the country. Tylee Ryan and J.J. Vallow disappeared in September of 2019. For months, Lori Vallow Daybell and Chad Daybell, her new husband, refused to answer any questions about where these kids were. Can you tell me where your kids are?

There's people around the country praying for your children, praying for you guys. Why don't you give us answers? That's great. That's great. Even after Lori was arrested, she still refused to say anything about where the kids were. Lori, where are your kids? How come you're not telling anybody where your kids are? Then came that shattering news that they had all feared.

Detectives and investigators have recovered what's believed to be human remains. Months after vanishing into thin air, the remains of J.J. Vallow and Tylee Ryan were found buried here in Chad Daybell's backyard. He remains behind bars, charged with murdering them. Did your father, Chad Daybell, play any role in killing J.J. and Tylee? No. It's completely unthinkable. How is it possible two children are found buried in your father's backyard and he had nothing to do with it?

He was framed. Thank you. Up until that terrible day when authorities swarmed their father's property looking for two missing kids, the Five Day Bell children say they were just an ordinary Mormon family living outside Rexburg, Idaho. But that has changed. But that has changed. People are acting like we've done horrible crimes and that we are going to hurt people. People sent me Facebook messages threatening my son. That's just daily life now. Their father, Chad Daybell, is charged with one of the most savage crimes to ever befall this community, the murders of his new wife's two children, 16-year-old Tylee Ryan and 7-year-old J.J. Vallum.

It's just not possible. Anyone who says that my dad could kill a person doesn't know my dad. The evidence doesn't look good. I think I would interpret it as many people have, Emma, Mark, Leah, Seth, and Garth spoke out together for the first time. They say we've only heard one side of the story, and they're here to tell their father's side, how they believe the remains of Tylee and JJ ended up here in their father's backyard. A story that begins with their stepmother, Lori Vallum. Looking back, was your father meeting Lori, marrying her, the worst mistake of his life? Absolutely. None of this would have happened if Lori Vallow had never come into my family's life. The Lori Vallow the world has come to know.

The doomsday mom who refused to say where her children were. The woman now accused with Chad Daybell of murdering her own two kids, is nothing like the doting mother April Raymond once considered a dear friend. She did everything for JJ, everything for Tylee. They were the center of her world. And so I'm not sure what hijacked that priority. what hijacked that priority. April met Lori in 2015 in Hawaii. At the time, Lori was married to businessman Charles Vallow, and they were raising the two children, Tylee, Lori's teenage daughter from a former marriage, and their adopted son, JJ,

the grandson of Charles' sister, Kay Woodcock. JJ had autism, and Lori was the ideal mother for him, says April. JJ was very difficult to take care of. So I really admired how patient she was with him and how much care she took of him. But it was Tylee's bond with JJ that Tylee's close friend, Vaisia Itayajo, will always remember. I loved being around JJ and Tylee. Tylee was really protective over JJ, and she was kind of like another mama to him. In 2017, relatives say Lori's relationships with her kids began to shift sometime after she started reading the books of Chad Daybell. I've recently released my autobiography.

Daybell was a professional gravedigger turned novelist and podcaster from Rexburg, Idaho. He wrote religious tales about the destruction of the world. Investigative reporter and CBS News consultant Morgan Lowe. He tapped into this prepper element out there, people who wanted to prepare for Armageddon. Daybell was married to this woman, Tammy, and they were raising five children. Some say over the years, Chad's religious beliefs became extreme. He believed he could talk to dead people and see into the future. According to one witness, Chad talked about dark spirits and zombies.

Chad had this belief that some people who were on this earth weren't really the people they were supposed to be. Their souls had left them and evilness took over their bodies. And the only way to release their spirits to heaven was to kill the bodies. Sometime in 2018, Lori met Chad Daybell, developing what friends say seemed like a cult-like devotion to him. She was a fan of his writing, and when she actually got to talk with him, yeah, just escalated from there. Lori started doing podcasts with Chad. Soon, she was talking about dark spirits and zombies, and telling friends and family that she had been chosen by God to carry out his mission. Lori believed that she was chosen to lead the 144,000 after the apocalypse, to lead the survivors of the human race to an eternal life while the rest of society burned.

She also believed she had been appointed another, more ominous role, says April. Part of her mission on Earth was to eliminate the darkness, the demonic, the evil. April says Lori told her one of those evil beings was her then-husband, Charles Vallow. The way she had explained it to me about Charles was that Charles was already dead and that there was a demon living inside of him. What did she say yesterday? She said, you're not Charles. I don't know who you are, what you did with Charles. Charles was so spooked by Lori, he went to the police.

Come over here. Their conversation was recorded on the officer's body cam. She thinks she's a resurrected being and a god. He was worried about his safety and the safety of his children. So what makes her a danger to herself and to others? She threatened me, murdered me, killed me. She threatened to murder you? Yes.

She threatened me, murdered me, killed me. She threatened to murder you? Yes. In the winter of 2019, Charles changed the beneficiary of his $1 million life insurance policy from Lori to his sister, Kay Woodcock, JJ's biological grandmother. After almost 13 years of marriage, Charles filed for divorce. After almost 13 years of marriage, Charles filed for divorce. Charles Vallow had good reason to be scared. Why don't you come over here? By the summer of 2019, Charles Vallow had gone to the police twice,

claiming there was something desperately wrong with his estranged wife, Lori Vallow. She's psychologically, she's gone. Something's happened to her. But no one acted on it, and Charles Vallow let his guard down. On the morning of July 11th, Charles went to Lori's rental home in Chandler, Arizona, to pick up JJ and take him to school. He goes into the house. Lori and Tylee and JJ are there, and so is Alex Cox. Alex Cox, Lori's brother.

Within minutes of entering the house that morning, Charles was lying on the floor in a pool of blood, At the house that morning, Charles was lying on the floor in a pool of blood, shot twice in the chest by Alex Cox in what Alex claimed was self-defense. 911, where is your emergency? Alex calmly called 911. Is he breathing? I can't tell. He said, I need to report a shooting. I shot my brother-in-law in self-defense. Dispatchers instructed Alex on how to do CPR.

When police questioned him, Alex was sitting on the curb outside the home. Alex told them Charles and Lori had gotten into a fight. So you get in an argument? What is it over? Well, it was over with my sister. He was getting physical with her, and so my niece came out. Alex told them he got between Charles and Lori and shot Charles dead when Charles charged at him. At some point, Lori and Tylee got into the car and left. Lori takes JJ to school, and she comes back later with Tylee. The police blurred Tylee's face because she was a minor. Hi, who are you?

Okay, just stand over there for just a second, guys. What was striking about the footage that we saw was that there's no remorse, there's no, oh my gosh, my husband's dead. How long have you lived here? Like three weeks. Oh, geez. Yeah, okay. That's why the neighbors don't know us.

Gotcha. Like, hi neighbor, sorry. Are you geez. Yeah, okay. That's why the neighbors don't know us. Gotcha. Like, hi, neighbor, sorry. Are you working at all? No. Lori, Alex, and Tylee were questioned at the police headquarters. All told similar stories of self-defense and were sent home. About two months later, Laurie and the two kids moved to Rexburg, Idaho, not far from where Chad Daybell lived with his wife Tammy.

Laurie's brother, Alex Cox, the man she considered her protector, moved into this same complex. Laurie sort of viewed Alex as the destroyer of bad things in her eyes. He was there to take care of the problems. It appears one problem was Tylee Ryan. We know that in the spring of 2019, Lori started referring to Tylee as a zombie. To at least one of her close friends. One of those close friends was April Raymond. And she had described Tylee as having a dark spirit.

These are the last known pictures of Tylee Ryan. On September 8th, she was with Lori, JJ, and Alex at Yellowstone National Park. The 16-year-old was never seen again. And just two weeks later, JJ Vallow would go missing. Tylee was JJ's protector. Once she was gone, JJ had nobody. He had nobody to protect him or watch out for him.

The night before JJ vanished, Lori's good friend, Melanie Gibb, and her boyfriend, David Warwick, were staying at Lori's townhome. They later testified that they were recording a religious podcast in Lori's kitchen when Alex Cox appeared. He brought JJ into the house during the middle of the podcast. How did Alex Cox bring JJ into the house? He carried him in, and he was asleep. This photo of JJ wearing red pajamas was taken that same day. It is the last known photo of him. David testified that Alex put JJ to bed in Lori's room, but the little boy was nowhere to be seen the next morning.

Lori told David why. She said that he was being a zombie and climbed up on the cabinets, climbed up on top of the bridge, smashed her picture of Christ down, and then climbed up onto the upper cabinets and got between the top of the cabinet and the ceiling. Okay. And then what did she tell you? I asked to see him and she just said that he was out of control. So she had Alex come and get him. JJ was never seen again. Across town, another family, my dad holding me on top of a sign, was about tolin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing.

The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military, and when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music.

Hot shot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her specialty? Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals. However, while Nicola held the underworld's darkest secrets, the most dangerous secret was her own. She's going to all the major groups within Melbourne's underworld, and she's informing on them all. I'm Marsha Clark, host of the new podcast, Informants Lawyer X. In my long career in criminal justice as a prosecutor and defense attorney, I've seen some crazy cases, and this one belongs right at the top of the list.

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I mean, they're all good. Yeah, that's all of us together. These are the times Garth and Emma cherish. There's Mom, me, Dad. It's a cute family picture. Life was good. Life was happy. Life looks a whole lot different now. How do you feel as you look through these much happier times?

There's been so much sadness that there's a part of me that feels broken, like it'll never be fixed. Before anyone knew Tylee and JJ were missing, the Daybell children became part of the story. A story that began on the saddest day of their lives, October 19th, 2019. I was asleep and I heard a thump and heard my dad yell, Garth, Garth, come quick. bump and heard my dad yell, Garth, Garth, come quick. Garth found his mother, 49-year-old Tammy Daybell, lying half on the bed, half on the floor. I just ran over and picked her up and put her back on the bed. I said to my dad, I said, I think she's dead.

It was just so heartbreaking. It just seemed so unfathomable that it could even happen. My dad was just pacing back and forth, just saying, why? How could this happen? Pointing at pictures on the wall, she can't be dead. Like, how could this be? What do we do? on the wall. She can't be dead. Like, how could this be? What do we do?

When the coroner arrived, the family says she told them it looked like Tammy had died of natural causes. The children, who say their mother was in failing health, did not question it. She would get out of breath very quickly and would get very tired, and she started going to bed very early at night. The family declined an autopsy, a decision that would later cause some to question how Tammy Daybell really died. A lot of people think that your father didn't want an autopsy because he murdered her and didn't want to be caught. Do you buy that? The narrative is that But even the kids admit, Lori Vallow was a little harder to explain. She just kind of appeared.

Roughly two weeks after their mother's death, Chad, ukulele in hand, was celebrating on the beach in Hawaii with his new bride. How did you process all of that? That was really hard, and it really surprised us. And it was clear that he already had an emotional connection with her. I know this is a difficult question, but was your father having an affair with Lori while he was married to your mother? That depends on your definition of affair.

Emotionally, I would say yes. But physically, I think my father thought he was in the right because I haven't had sex with her. So I'm being faithful. Did it ever cross your mind, even for a moment, that your father killed your mother to clear the way so that he could marry Lori? No. No. I think common sense in lot of ways, would suggest there could be a motive behind that sudden passing. I can see where people would see that. It was a very socially inappropriate choice to make. And socially inappropriate doesn't mean something bad happened, though.

But something bad did happen, and the world was about to learn about it. On November 26, 2019, soon after the newlyweds returned to Idaho, Rexburg police came knocking on Lori's door, looking for JJ. His grandmother, Kay Woodcock, had been unable to reach him for several months. Lori told them that JJ was in Arizona with a friend. The police recorded their conversation. Who's the friend he's with? My friend, Melanie.

That same friend who was staying with Lori the last time JJ was seen, Melanie Gibb. She would testify at Chad's preliminary hearing that Chad told her not to pick up the phone when the police called. And that Lori asked her to lie and tell the police that JJ was staying with her in Arizona. How did that make you feel? I had a really bad feeling in my stomach and I felt very shooken up by it. At first, Melanie Gibb wasn't forthcoming to the police. But 12 days later, she made a call to Lori and Chad and secretly recorded. Chad said they couldn't tell her where JJ was for her own security.

couldn't tell her where J.J. was for her own security. If you knew, that puts you in danger. Melanie handed that secret recording to authorities, and investigators launched a nationwide search. But not just for J.J. They would soon learn that his big sister, Tylee, was also missing. A search for two children from Idaho. Listen up, you may know something. The children mysteriously disappeared. It was huge news, especially to Lori's new stepchildren. work and asked me about them. I had never heard of them before that point. So even after your father

weds Lori, you didn't know that there were two kids in the picture at that point? I did not. As the hunt for the children intensified, Lori and Chad again headed to Hawaii, seemingly the only two people in America not concerned about the missing children. Can you tell me where your kids are? Where are your children? When you spoke to your father, hearing the mounting criticism, the ongoing and growing manhunt for them, did you ever say to your father, just show the kids? Yeah.

And what did he say? He said we can't for their safety. What were they afraid of? What was making JJ unsafe? I don't know. I don't know either. You're telling me at no point here did you think, oh God, there's something bad going on here. We need to get to the bottom of this. We of course had those thoughts briefly, but it all came down to our trust in our father. We trusted him and he trusted Lori, and I think that's really how it played out. Playout it did, but not the way they wanted. Please be seated. Lori was arrested in Hawaii

on child abandonment charges and extradited to Rexburg. Chad, the loyal husband, by her side. But now Chad himself was under suspicion. With the children missing, the police took a closer look at the death of Tammy. Could she have been murdered?

Authorities exhumed her body. It took us calling our grandfather and having him run to the cemetery to verify that the grave was disturbed. And that was probably one of the hardest things we've gone through. Everything just keeps getting piled on us, it feels like. In a truth is stranger than fiction plot twist, yet another death. Lori's brother, Alex Cox, suddenly dropped dead, an autopsy determined of natural causes. That was a jaw-dropping moment because that's somebody who could answer questions.

Because that's somebody who could answer questions. They say dead men don't talk, but this one did. Alex Cox's cell phone harbored a tale of horrors. Waiting to be discovered in Chad Daybell's backyard. Yard. Revisit the investigation from the early days to now on Facebook at 48 Hours. Did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, early and ad-free on Wondery Plus and the Wondery app. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge? Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly?

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by joining Wondery Plus. It's just the best idea yet. On June 9th, 2020, law enforcement descended upon the once peaceful home and property of Chad Daybell, searching for signs of JJ and Tylee. According to the prosecution, Alex Cox's cell phone data placed him here for two hours the day after Tylee Ryan was last seen. Authorities later discovered her remains buried in the same spot. It was an area the Daybell family used as a pet cemetery.

It now contained Tylee's badly burned body. And about 50 yards away, JJ's remains were found in a shallow grave under a tree. He was in his red pajamas. The remains were found in a shallow grave under a tree. He was in his red pajamas. J.J. was also covered head to toe in duct tape, as a detective would later describe. He had duct tape continuously wrapped from elbow all the way around his arms, over his hands, all the way to his right elbow. Why do you bind somebody's feet and hands and mouth in duct tape? You do it to keep them from yelling or talking.

These were real kids that had these horrendous things done to them. While investigators were discovering the brutally murdered bodies, Chad had gone to his car. Later, says Emma, as her father started driving off to meet his attorney, they learned the horrifying news. When my dad left, they arrested him. Some police officers told me that they had discovered human remains on the property. I was standing in the doorway of the police car as he was sitting inside handcuffed.

And the first thing he asked me was, do you know why they arrested me? My thought was, how do you not know? And I was crying. And I said, dad, they found human remains. And his face went white and his eyes went wide. He was shocked. When the bodies were found in your father's backyard, after your father was unable to answer the simple question of where are the children, was that a moment where you questioned your father's innocence? Not my father. It goes back to what we know about him as a man, as our father. If he

didn't kill them, then why were their bodies found buried in your father's backyard? I don't know why they would be there, but I do know that if he were to commit a crime, he wouldn't be foolish enough to put the evidence in his own backyard. This is where Tylee's body was found, was back here. It must be hard for you to come and visit this area. I don't come back here. It's horrific to even think about. Emma showed us around the property, believing that the area itself helps explain why her family thinks their father is innocent. For them, the notion that Chad would hide anything in the backyard makes no sense. You can look around for miles and miles. There's not houses and neighbors. You could go down to

the river that way. There's land down there that no one would ever touch. And the Daybell family says the fact that the remains were found in shallow graves points fingers away from their father, who had worked as a grave digger. He knew how to dig graves, and that just doesn't sound believable to me. Saying that somebody's prior experience as a grave digger means that they wouldn't just sloppily bury somebody in their own backyard. Sort of discounts all of the psychological pressure that might be affecting somebody who's trying to get rid of bodies. But maybe the most damning evidence against Chad are his own words. A text message he sent nine months before the bodies were discovered to his then-wife

Tammy. It read in part, I spotted a big raccoon along the fence. I hurried and got my gun. One shot did the trick. He is now in our pet cemetery. But the fact that Chad sent that text to his wife, it was like he was setting up an excuse. It was sent on the day prosecutors believe Tylee was buried, 14 minutes after Alex Cox's GPS placed him on the Daybell property. The timeline is very chilling. Alex Cox there and your father texting your mother, saying that he shot and buried a raccoon around the same time,

in the same exact place that Tylee was found. This seems like a smoking gun to me. Well, that same day, when I arrived home from work, he said, hey, Garth, I got that raccoon we were looking for. We were having a raccoon problem. He'd set out traps. The traps were too small, so the next best option was to shoot them. However, investigators found no raccoon.

The Daybell family says that's because there's another pet cemetery in a different spot. Over there is where our secondary pet cemetery was. We had a new section of our pasture that we had designated for burying animals. They didn't go over to that section at all and search it? They didn't touch it during the search. If there was a second pet cemetery, I would imagine the defense is going to come up with evidence. But the evidence prosecutors had against Chad and Lori was mounting.

And in May of 2021, Chad and Lori were charged with murder in the deaths of JJ and Tylee. I do know that my father believes that killing someone, murdering someone is not what God wants. But Chad did believe that some individuals had dark spirits like Tylee. A local Fox TV station uncovered this email from Chad to Lori where he graded people, giving Tylee a D as a dark spirit. I don't know what to say. It just seems immature, but I don't know. immature, but I don't know. They also say there was no talk of zombies or cults. He never said a thing to us about zombies.

The first we'd ever heard of it was in a news report. I think if he was going to start a cult, we would be the prime members. He would have started with us. It just didn't happen. So you don't believe that your father radicalized Lori? No. We really don't know Lori or what she was thinking, but we do know our dad. Still, investigative reporter Morgan Lowe says the suspicion surrounding Chad is hard to ignore. There are a lot of pieces of circumstantial evidence that tie Chad Daybell to these murders.

The bodies were found in his backyard. The text message about the raccoon. His wife died under mysterious circumstances. And then he asked Melanie Gibb to not pick up the phone when the police called. Those pieces of evidence are hard to get around. We do want there to be justice for whoever did this horrible crime. We don't want to seem callous that we don't feel sad about JJ entirely.

Because we do. Yeah, because we do. We are very sad. We just don't think it was our father. And the family has an alternative theory about what may have happened. What do you think really unfolded? He was framed. This is his property.

If there's bodies buried here, it would be attributed to him. Who framed your father? I think it's pretty clear it was Lori and Alex. Alex came and left for periods of time. We don't know what exactly he was doing. I guess it's possible that Chad was framed. This is either the least lucky person in the world, or this is murder.

Do you think Chad Daybell was framed? Chat now on Facebook and Twitter. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn, and it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reach the age of 10 that would still have heard it. It just happens to all of them. I'm journalist Luke Jones, and for almost two years I've been investigating a shocking story that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what

they can get away with. In the Pitcairn Trials, I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely Pacific island to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. The Daybell children are forever marked by what happened in their backyard. What goes on in your mind as you stand here looking at what was the gravesite for JJ? It's horrible. It's hard to even comprehend. It's a nightmare for me every single day to even think about. Lives with so much potential and goodness, and they're gone, they're ended.

But Emma still believes their father, Chad Daybell, had no role in the deaths of JJ and Tylee. She remains convinced that he was unwittingly lured into Lori and Alex's web of murder and deceit. How could he be surrounded by such evil and not know it? I've wondered the same thing. I think he was fooled in the worst, most deadly way possible. If your father had no role whatsoever, why do you think Alex or Lori would kill the children?

We'd have to get into their head to know that. I think we would all like to know that. One theory goes back to the death of Charles Vallow, Lori's husband when she first met Chad. Remember, Charles was shot dead by Alex Cox, who claimed it was self-defense. After further investigation, police now say that it was murder. Let me just get your information. How old are you?

Tylee may have been a witness that day. And it's possible, says Lori's longtime friend, April Raymond, that she knew too much. Why do you think the children were murdered? I feel like they were a liability. Especially Tylee was a liability for what she knew. Tylee is dead. JJ is dead.

Even Alex Cox is dead. Although investigators say he died of natural causes. We can't ignore the idea that every witness to what happened to Charles Vallow is now dead except for Lori Vallow Daybell. Based in part on this police document, prosecutors in Arizona charged Lori with conspiring with Alex to kill Charles Vallow. It's a compelling case that they have. They have electronic evidence, they have text messages. What they say is that this was a planned event. Lori and Alex Cox planned to kill Charles Vallow. One possible motive, says Lowe, she wanted Vallow's million dollar life insurance policy. We know that shortly after Charles' death, Lori tried to claim that life insurance policy.

Chairman of the police department, anybody inside, make yourself known! Police say Alex shot Charles once in the chest and shot him again while he was helpless on the ground. They also concluded that he waited nearly 45 minutes before calling 911. And even though Alex claimed to be giving Charles CPR, police say he was only pretending to try to save his life. When the first responders arrived on the scene and they started performing CPR, blood started coming out of the wounds.

And that told the first responders that nobody had performed CPR before. And authorities say Charles Vallow is not the only murdered spouse in this story. In Idaho, Chad and Lori have been charged with conspiring to murder Tammy Daybell. Though the results of Tammy's autopsy, performed after she was exhumed, have not been publicly released, Garth Daybell says authorities told

him how they believe his mother was killed. They told me that she had been asphyxiated. What went on in your mind when you have police telling you your mother was asphyxiated. What went on in your mind when you have police telling you your mother was asphyxiated? It's hard to process, but I just still can't believe that he would do such a thing. My dad loved my mom very, very much. She loved him. He could never do that. We've had several interactions with the police where they have told us things before that

turned out to not be true. But police are convinced that together, Chad and Lori were a lethal combination. There are a lot of big questions about this case, but the biggest is probably who was the mastermind here. Was it Chad Daybell, the cult leader who pulled the strings from the sidelines? Or was it Lori Vallow Daybell, the bombshell, the black widow who used her charm and sex appeal to get other people to do her bidding? Lori and Chad were scheduled to be tried together.

Just after murder charges were announced, Lori's case was put on hold. A judge ruled her incompetent to stand trial while she underwent mental health treatment. In August 2021, the state of Idaho announced it will be seeking the death penalty against Chad Daybell. On count one of the indictment, Mr. Daybell, how do you plead? On count one of the indictment, Mr. Daybell, how do you plead? Not guilty. He has pleaded not guilty to all counts. On count two, how do you plead?

Not guilty. On count three, how do you plead? Not guilty. On count four, how do you plead? Not guilty. On count five, how do you plead? Not guilty. On count six, how do you plead? Not guilty. On count six, how do you plead?

Not guilty. September 2022 marks the third anniversary of Tylee and JJ's deaths. So many, grief-stricken and angry, await the trials, hoping for justice. But in the end, no verdict can do what everyone wants the most, to bring the children back. A socialite living in paradise. Her friend, a senior police official, shot dead. These two people wind up on a lonely pier together. That was a terrible accident. Or was it?

My brother was shot. Execution time. Murder. 48 Hours, Saturday on CBS. Execution style. Murder. 48 hours, Saturday on CBS.