Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Doomsday Cult Couple Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell Head to New Murder Trials in 2024

Episode Date: December 27, 2023

The so-called Doomsday Cult couple, Lori Vallow Daybell and Chad Daybell, will go to trial separately in 2024 in both Arizona and Idaho. Lori Vallow is already serving a life sentence in Idaho for the murders of her children and Chad Daybell's late wife, Tammy Daybell. Chad Daybell's trial for the same murders is scheduled to begin in April 2024. The Law&Crime Network's Angenette Levy talks with the GiGi McKelvey, host of the Pretty Lies&Alibis podcast, about the twisted cases in this episode of Crime Fix.HOST:Angenette Levy: twitter.com/Angenette5CRIME FIX PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Michael DeiningerScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this law and crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. You and ma'am, could you state your full name, please? Lori Vallow Daybell. And your date of birth? 6-26-73. Doomsday cult mom Lori Vallow, serving a life sentence for the murders of her children and her current husband's late wife.

Now she's facing murder charges in Arizona, while her husband, Chad Daybell, will go to trial in Idaho for the murders of Tylee Ryan, J.J. Vallow, and his wife, Tammy Daybell, in 2024. My eternal friend, Tammy Daybell, has visited me on several occasions. She came to bring me peace and comfort. I'm Anjanette Levy, and this is a special edition of Crime Fix, where we're looking at what's ahead for Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell in 2024. Lori Vallow Daybell is in the Maricopa County Jail, awaiting trial for the murder of her ex-husband, Charles Vallow, and the attempted murder of her niece's ex-husband, Brandon Boudreaux. One of the saddest things about Charles Vallow's murder, I'm sure you'll agree, is the fact that he tried to get help for Lori, talking with police months before

his murder about her religious extremism. kind of a drug community. She thinks she's... You're LDS? Yes. She thinks she's married to Moroni in the past. You think she's what? Married to Moroni on top of the temple. Angel. Angel. LDS. They don't let me in there.

She's been in probation, and she knows when the second coming is happening next year, so there's a profit. Later in 2019, Charles was shot to death. Lori's brother, Alex Cox, shot Charles. He claimed it was self-defense, but that was all a lie. Alex died months later of natural causes. Lori was moved to Arizona in November to answer to the charges.

Do you have any questions? Are those cases going to be combined or are they going to be done separately? Well, they are two separate cases, but they're going to be handled at the same hearing. Okay. Okay. And now Chad Daybell will go to trial in April of 2024. Judge Boyce denied Chad Daybell's request to strike the death penalty from his case. Joining me to discuss what the new year will hold for both Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell. As somebody who knows this case inside and out, she covered it for us here on Law and Crime, and she's been doing deep dives on it from the very beginning. Gigi McKelvey is the host of the Pretty Lies and Alibis podcast. Gigi, thank you so much for coming on Crime Fix. We appreciate it. Always good to hang out with you, Anjanette. You too. So Lori

Vallow, and I call her Lori Vallow. I'm going to say why I don't call her Lori Vallow Daybell, because I think her name is maybe still legally Lori Vallow, because on the court records in Arizona, it says Lori Vallow. So I don't I'm not sure she's legally Lori Vallow Daybell at this point in time. But what do you expect in 2024 for her? I'm not sure that I expect trial, to be honest. You know, at her arraignment, the state asked to push that out, I think, 240, 270 days due to the complexity of the case. So the judge for the moment just kept the dates in place. They have to file it.

The last I've seen, they haven't filed it. They could have in the last day or two. But I'm not sure that she'll actually get to trial this year. I think that that's a really interesting thought, given the fact that Alex Cox was the person who shot and killed Charles Vallow. He readily admitted it. He claimed self-defense at the time, but now prosecutors are saying that was all a lie. This was all part of this crazy thing that this whole, you know, doomsday cult had going on. And that Alex was part of it. He, of course,

died of natural causes following Charles's death. So you don't anticipate trial, but we're going to see a lot of motions and things like that. Do you think it's also really complicated because they're going to have to hand all of this material over to the defense team, the prosecutor's will. They're going to have to sift through it, work with her on some type of defense, and then piece together how she was able to prompt her brother that's the theory to carry out these killings right and you know the other things i should say the attempted murder of brandon boudreaux sorry about that well there were other killings unfortunately but yeah so and the other thing too is you know tyler ryan was a witness to this as well and she's deceased so the only

living person there that day was Lori and it is a lot I have seen some of the Chandler and Gilbert documents thousand of over a thousand pages each lots of redactions so it's going to be a lot for a defense team to come in and they're going to have to know a little bit about the other cases the case where she was found guilty you know earlier in the year up there in Ada County to be able to have some context into Charles's murder. And I think ultimately what's going to be so hard is watching these body cam videos back in January of 2019, where Charles was absolutely correct. I mean, everything he warned the police about was ultimately testified to on the stand during Lori's trial in April and May of this year. So, but you know, it's good because his sons, he has adult sons and, you know, siblings

who are ready for his time for justice. And it is heartbreaking to watch those body camera videos. He's literally, you know, crying out for help for his then wife and trying to get her help. He's saying, look, there is something really wrong here. She's very disturbed. One thing that I found interesting, Gigi, was the fact that the sheriff of Maricopa County, when she was extradited and moved from Idaho to Arizona, he said she was quite chatty. And they released this very good, high quality video of her arriving in arizona she practically i mean looked happy to be there she didn't look upset she didn't look sad she she looked fine i mean i maybe she's

resigned herself to her fate that she's going to be in prison for the rest of her life for the murders of her children and tammy daybell but i mean it she, she seemed almost happy to be in Arizona, even though she's in jail. Well, yeah. And we've heard the opposite, that she really did not want to go to Arizona. But if you look at it, Anjanette, this is kind of her last chance in the spotlight. These are the last charges she's facing. And so after this trial, she kind of fades into the abyss of the prison system. And we may hear her name every once in a while if something comes up. So Lori did the same thing at her trial. You would not think she was on trial for the murder of her children and Tammy Daybell with the way she acted.

Very nonchalant, grinning, smiling every day. There was a few times she did cry when Colby was on the stand, when Summer was on the stand. But we had that issue where she did not want to look at the crime scene photos and the autopsy photos of JJ and Tylee. The judge made her stay, but she didn't cry during that part. The only times we saw her were when family members were on the stand and that was it. So it doesn't surprise me that she looked like she was parading in front of the cameras. Lori always had these delusions of grandeur. She was on Wheel of Fortune.

She was in the Miss Texas pageant. And for one moment, all eyes were on her and she loved it. Yeah, I was going to ask you that, if she liked the attention. I mean, she's obviously taking care of her appearance behind bars. She's always made up. Her hair always looks good. At least she's put some effort into it. So let's switch gears now.

Somebody who may not like the attention as much, or maybe he does, Chad Daybell. What are your thoughts on Chad Daybell's trial, which will start in April of 2024? Yeah, that trial starts April Fool's Day, ironically. Lori's is scheduled to start April 4th. So if that date were Stan, which we just talked about, it probably won't. They would have trials going on in tandem. But his trial is going to be held in Ada County. They filed a motion to bring it to Fremont County where the murders occurred.

The judge ruled last week that's not going to happen. Much larger jury pull up there in Ada County. And there were no hiccups. I have to say, Lori's trial was one of the smoothest running trials I've ever sat in. There were no hiccups. So I think you don't fix what's not broken. And Judge Boyce knows it's an inconvenience. It's far away from Rexburg, but at the same time, it really ensures a fair trial. So yeah, a death penalty case is going to be a little bit longer than Lori's, but a lot of the same evidence with some additional things in there that we probably

haven't heard yet. And I know that you and I are both happy that Judge Boyce is at least allowing his camera system to stream this trial. This is not something we had in Lori Vallow's trial in Ada County, unfortunately. So thank goodness we're going to be able to have that as an option because we know when a camera is in the courtroom, that's really how you get the clearest view of the testimony. You can log on and watch it anytime you like. One thing I found interesting from the last hearing, Gigi, was the fact that Chad Daybell's lawyer kind of suggested that he wants to kind of point the finger at Lori.

Like the prosecutor said in their closing arguments that, you know, this was Lori's deal or that Lori was doing this. She was the one in control. What did you make of that? And do you think that's where Chad Daybell's lawyers will go? Oh, yeah, he's going to he's going to throw under the bus and back over for good measure. But here's what I found ironic about what John Pryor said. He essentially admitted that Chad followed her during the course of these crimes. It's not like he gave any indication. He said, well, she was the mastermind. He didn't say my client's innocent.

My client wasn't a part of this. Never said that. So that stood out to me. But we know Lori did not want to throw Chad or her dead brother, Alex, under the bus. And it doesn't look like Chad's going to return that favor. It certainly didn't sound that way, but it really doesn't matter. I mean, I don't want to get too deep into the weeds about the law, but whether he followed her or not, it doesn't matter. If they can prove that he knew about it, he was part of it, he was an accomplice, he was involved, then he will be found guilty if the jury determines that the state proved its case.

And the thing is this, we've always heard the case against Chab was much stronger than Lori's. Lori's was circumstantial other than the one hair they found with JJ's body, and that's explainable. They cohabitated. Chab, we already know they found a pickaxe in his barn with Tylee's DNA. And most importantly, the kids were found on his property and his wife died in their house. So he's taken it to trial. And, you know, I guess the one thing, the only thing you can do is just say it was all her. She was controlling me with, with her goddess ways. I guess we'll hear more about that. But we should hear some more about Chad's phone evidence, computer evidence, what they found on his electronics.

None of that came into Lori's trial. So interested to see what else they have on Chad other than these huge red flags of DNA in the kid's bodies being on his property. Gigi McKelvey hosted the Pretty Lies and Alibis podcast. Thank you so much for coming on. We appreciate it. Thanks for asking me. And that's it for this edition of Crime Fix. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. Thanks so much for joining us. We will see you back here tomorrow. Until then,

have a great night.