Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Breaking News: Cult Mom Lori Vallow children duct taped, wrapped in plastic, dismembered

Episode Date: June 23, 2020

JJ and Tylee, Lori Vallow's children have been found buried on husband Charles Daybell's property. Pings from the cellphone of Vallow's deceased brother led police to get a search warrant for the area. Alex Cox was at the property on two dates around the last time the children were seen.Joining Nancy Grace today: Ashley Willcott - Judge and trial attorney, Anchor on Court TV Caryn Stark - NYC Psychologist Sheryl McCollum - Forensics Expert & Cold Case Investigative Research Institute Founder Dr. Kendall Crowns - Deputy Medical Examiner Travis County, Texas (Austin) Nate Eaton, reporter East Idaho News Ben Levitan - Telecommunications Expert Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. J.J. Vallow and Tylee Ryan are dead. We may have thought so all along, but now we know. We know that their remains were destroyed and buried in the backyard of cult mom Lori Vallow's new husband's home. What now? Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. How does it all unfold? And what is the next step? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories.

Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. First of all, take a listen to this. The months-long search for 7-year-old J.J. Vallow and 17-year-old Tylee Ryan officially comes to a close. The human remains found on Chad Daybell's property are officially identified as the missing kids. The Rexburg Police Department announcing the findings earlier today following autopsies performed in Boise. The remains were found at Daybell's home in Salem Tuesday after a search warrant was issued. Authorities have not released details about the conditions of the remains. Rexburg Police, Fremont County Sheriff Deputies, along with the FBI, made the discovery in Daybell's backyard. Daybell has been arrested and charged with two felony counts of concealment or destruction of evidence. What? Where's the murder charge?

What's the holdup? You find two dead children's bodies buried in your backyard and why don't you hear this? In text messages Chad Daybill sent to his then wife now dead Tammy Daybill. He talks about how he had to put down a raccoon. It was no raccoon. It was 17-year-old Tylee. That's who he killed and buried, or at least got rid of the body. But the plot is thickening as we learn that Colt Mom's brother, her avenging angel, as she called him, her words, not mine,

was there at that burial scene. According to his GPS, so many facts we are finding out now. But big question, where's the murder charges? Why just concealment? With me, an all-star panel to break it down, put it back together again, Ashley Wilcott, judge and trial lawyer, anchor, CourtTV at AshleyWilcott.com, Karen Stark, New York psychologist at KarenStark.com. Founder of the Cold Case Research Institute, Cheryl McCollum, also Crime Scene Tech.

Dr. Kendall Crowns, Deputy Medical Examiner, Travis County, Austin. Telecommunications expert out of Raleigh, Ben Levitan. But right now, to the reporter that cracked the whole thing wide open with the EastIdahoNews.com, Nate Eaton. Nate, just give it to me in a nutshell, all right? Where's the murder charges? I think that you can anticipate murder charges eventually. Right now, police are putting together their case very meticulously, as they have done since the beginning. Plus, they have to prove who actually killed these children. We know that

they were buried at Chad Daybell's house, but as you mentioned, Alex Cox, Lori's brother, was also there based on his cell phone pings. So who actually did the act of murder? Nate, Nate, let's just all agree that you're one of the greatest reporters around. But do you have your law degree? Just a question. Innocent question. Do you? I am no attorney. Okay, thank you. You stop right there. You can stop right there. Because isn't it true, Ashley Wilcott, we need to charge the whole kit and caboodle. All right, because at this point, Ashley, in my mind, it doesn't matter who pulled the trigger or strangled or suffocated. They were in it together. And when you act in concert, when you all know what's going on, you're all part of it.

It's like me driving my own business to a bank robbery. I know that it's a bank robbery. I drive you there. Ashley Wilcott, you go in. And all of a sudden, I hear an Uzi going off. I'm like, what? I'm charged with murder just like you. They all need to be charged.

Cult mom Lori Vallow, the new husband Chad Daybell, and if he was alive, Alex Cox, the brother. Right, wrong. I agree with you. I think they both need to be charged. But I'm going to suggest this. I believe in my mind that there may be other people still alive that need to be charged. I'm not going to tell you that I think it's only Lori and Chad. I think there might have been other people involved in this that also need to face those charges. Now, the good news is there's million dollar bonds, so they're not getting out of jail.

Well, I guess, you know, you're you're one to find the silver lining. I'm not so happy about it. You know, Cheryl McCollum joining me, the director of the Cold Case Research Institute. I don't know what took cops so long to figure out, wow, we need to search Chad Daybell's property and his curtilage. Curtilage under the law is what you call the shed, the carport, the farmhouse, the backyard, the adjoining properties. That's the curtilage, and that is included when you execute a search warrant on the home. The curtilage, C-U-R-T-I-L-A-G-E, is included. Cheryl McCollum, that's a whole other can of worms. I'm not worried about it now, why it took them so long to search. You know, they did an earlier search after Tammy Daybell, his wife, died in her sleep,

but they didn't search the grounds. What about it, Cheryl? Nancy, I think they were going step by step because they knew they'd get one shot. So they wanted to take their time and make sure they knew exactly where to search and in this case where to dig so that they can get all the evidence maintain everything perfectly recover everything bag tag everything is perfectly legal and scientific you know what cheryl i think a lot of you but you got it bass backwards, because if they were being so thorough, they would have searched the entire property. Look, I don't like to throw stones at the cops, but that property should have been searched day one.

All that is in hindsight. What matters now is the children's body have been found. Their bodies have been found, and the cops did do that. And I believe Nate Eaton, they did that ultimately because of GPS tracker information, specifically cell phone records. Nate Eaton, eastidahonews.com, what led police to finally go and search the curlage? And thank God they did. What led them there? Well, it was a bunch of little clues that came together within the past two or three weeks. One was the fact that Lori's best friend, Melanie Gibb, who had visited her in September, has been cooperating with police, told officers the last time she

remembered seeing JJ. It was when she and her boyfriend were visiting the day before JJ vanished. They were at Lori's house. Lori said he was acting like a zombie. He was climbing all over the cabinets. He knocked down a picture of Jesus on the fridge. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Yeah, there's a lot there. A child crawling on a cabinet is just what children do, in my mind. Maybe I'm crazy, Jackie, but I've seen John David, and and mostly John David get up on the island and have to get him down.

But that's what children do. And I'll tell you what I think pushed it over the edge. And I'm going to have to go to a shrink on this. Nate Eaton is when he accidentally knocked a picture. I don't know if it was a magnet or what, of Christ off the fridge. And that threw cult mom Lori Vallow into a fit. Hey, guys, take a listen to our friend Misty Englert there at KTVB. Boise, Idaho News.

Listen to this. September 22nd, the last time J.J. Vallow was seen. Police interviewed Melanie Gibb and her boyfriend David Warwick, who were visiting Lori that weekend. They told police Lori said JJ had turned into a zombie. The next morning, September 23rd, between 8 and 9 a.m., Warwick didn't see JJ and asked where he was. Lori stated he was acting out, so, quote, Alex had come and taken JJ. GPS data once again puts Alex on Chad's property that day from 9.55 a.m. until 10.12 a.m., paying near the pond. All this evidence started coming to light around the first part of June 2020.

Just days later, June 9th, police searched Chad's property. They focused on sites corresponding to the GPS from Alex's phone and the strange text to Tammy. JJ and Tylee's bodies were found in those areas near the pond and fire pit. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. The bodies have absolutely been identified of JJ and Tylee, the children of cult mom Lori Vallow. And I feel like we've all been played for fools while we all thought the likelihood was that the children were dead. There was always that little hope, that glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, this nut job, Lori Vallow, not insane by the way because she knew enough to lie and keep her trap shut to cops, that maybe she had hidden her children away in some bunker since she is predicting that the earth will come to an end on July 22nd.

So many people thought there was a possibility, a sliver of a chance the children were still alive. Well, they're dead. And it hurts a lot of us to actually say that. Over the months of helping to look for JJ entirely, we've come to believe we know them in some way. Now to find out that they're dead on Chad Daybell's property, basically in his backyard. Neighbors saying that he had a big bonfire going for days on end. I've got to believe that that's connected to the destruction of these children's body. With me, an all-star panel. I want to go back to Nate Eaton, eastidahonews.com, who's been on the case from the get-go.

Nate, you were saying that just before the cops, and I got to hand it to cops. I was giving them a hard time earlier, but they got this information at the beginning of June. Within days, they were out there with a warrant, and they find the bodies. But you were saying at the very beginning of June that they learned,

cops learned that just before the children disappear, that JJ, who's just seven years old at the time and autistic, has a lot of issues going on, had been acting like a zombie, according to Lori Vallow. You know, I just want to slap her right now to call her own child a zombie, Jackie, and an evil spirit. I just want to give her a little finger necklace.

That's a whole other issue. Nate, what else do you know about JJ allegedly, quote, acting like a zombie? Well, the other thing that Lori mentioned to her friends is that he had climbed up above the cabinet area. Now, her friends were staying in the house. They didn't hear any of this. They didn't witness any of this. This was just Lori telling them these things. They thought that that was a little odd. Next thing they know, Alex is taking JJ away. He comes back. JJ's asleep on Alex's shoulder. David, who was there, the friend, he said,

oh, that looks like a tender moment. He remembered that. The next day they went to go home to Arizona. They asked Lori if they could say goodbye to J.J. She said, J.J. is no longer here. That very same day, hours later, Alex's cell phone pinged at Chad Daybell's property. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm drinking from the fire hydrant, Nate Eaton. That's so much info. I've got to just break it down. You know, Nate Eaton, you have so much info. Almost every sentence you say is a point that I'd like to put on a big poster in front of

a jury. Let's examine what he just said, Cheryl McCollum. Listen to this. So just before JJ goes missing, he's acting out because he climbed on the counter. Okay. At most, that would have been a timeout at the most in our house. But that aside, then he goes somewhere with Alex, the brother who's now dead. He comes back asleep. They never see him awake again. Do you think he was drugged and then killed? I don't think there's any question. He was either drugged or in some way incapacitated

for a long period of time. Nancy, he could have already been deceased. Okay, well, I can always count on you to come up with another alarming and upsetting theory. Ashley Wilcott, judge, trial lawyer, court TV anchor, and mom. You know, if somebody wants to see the children, if they're asleep, I go, you know what? They're still asleep. Don't wake them up for Pete's sake. Or if they got a play date, I go, oh, you know what?

They're at the playground, which, of course, that would never happen because I would be spying on them. But you don't just say, they're no longer with us. You don't think that's weird, Ashley? No, it is weird. It's a big red flag because I would never say that. If I said that, it would mean that they were passed away, that they weren't with us literally alive on Earth.

So I do think the other aspect of that is exactly what you say. If it doesn't smell right, it's not right. And by that, I mean, hey, if somebody says, oh, they're not here or are too elusive, I think there's a problem. You know, to Karen Stark, joining me, New York psychologist at karenstark.com. Karen, what kind of mom, and you and I have talked about this so many times. Let's a man waltz into the home and suddenly start, A, molesting the child, beating the child, starving the child, poisoning her mind against her own children. And in this case, she didn't say all this zombie. Lori Vallow didn't come up with this zombie story about her children until Chad Daybell came in the picture. That's certainly not relieving

her of responsibility. But how does a mom just forget all the love, all the bonding, all the years you've had and go, yeah, they're zombies, they have to die? Well, unfortunately, Nancy, it would be wonderful if there were only terrific moms that this never happened to. But we know too many stories, as you said. And there are some people who are starved for love. And so this is the mom. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold it. Hold it.

Nate Eaton, how many times is not judging, not judging, don't care. Nate Eaton, how many times has Lori Vallow been married? This is her fifth marriage. Chad, it's her fifth marriage. Let me just say, Karen Stark, she's not starving for love. Now, as much as I love David, we all love David. I'm not doing it again.

I've done it. It's out of my system. I'm fine with it. What do you mean, starved for affection? This woman has had five husbands. She's not starved. But she's not feeling filled, but she's not feeling filled up. She's not nothing is making her feel good enough about herself or she wouldn't keep going from one man to the next. If you just take a look at it, she's not satisfied. And it's not,

in my opinion, that she feels so great about herself, she needs somebody better. But she's just searching and not feeling good, not feeling right. Okay, right. You know what, Karen, you know that I respect you, and we've been friends, actually personal friends, ever since day one at Court TV. But Karen Stark, she had a hand in killing her own children. All right.

That's right. Now, how are you somehow talking about her deflated ego and her id? Why? Why am I hearing this? You know, if I were not a teetotaler, you'd drive me to drink here and start. The reason I'm talking about her deflated ego is because she was so readily black. Really, I think so. Just somehow this guy got into her and got her to believe this whole thing about zombies.

So she was really susceptible. She was really open. You know what, though? The reality is, Cheryl McCollum, we could say that about all these moms that let a guy in their life, they start beating, molesting, starving the children. I don't get it. I've seen it since I started prosecuting felonies. I've only had a very few, a handful of cases where the mother sided with the children

and not the perp. Nancy, I agree with Dr. Stark. It seems to me that these women care more about their ego being fed. I need a man to validate that I'm pretty. I need a man to marry me to validate that I'm worthy. A man does something for these women that their children cannot. Okay, well, you know what? I'll leave that to the shrinks. All I care about is the body, the bodies in this case, who did it and who's going to jail for how long. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, we're talking about the Lori Vallow cult mom prosecution. And I want to

know what's going to happen now. First of all, I want you to take a listen to what we have learned about how the bodies were ultimately found. And when I say bodies, I'm talking about a seven-year-old little boy, J.J. Vallow, and his sister, 17-year-old Tylee. All the signs were there that they're dead. Did I want to believe it? No, I didn't. But I've got to tell you something. Nate Eaton, you remember when you told me at the very beginning when you were running along beside her in Hawaii going, hey, where are the children? Where are the children?

Where are the children? Where are the children? Where are the children? And you told me the story about she got in the car and she looked at somebody with these evil laser beam eyes. Okay. And I don't know any other better way to describe it. When I do a closeup on her eyes, she just looks evil. Go ahead, mock me if you want. But just a complete lack of remorse. It looks like you're looking at a reptile that's got cold blood running through her system. Yeah, some of the investigators have told me that dealing with Lori Ballo from the beginning has been impossible because she just has those eyes. She's very cold. She's very narcissistic.

Whereas Chad Daybell, up till this point you meet him and you think oh he's a friendly guy you know not much personality there but but at least he's friendly he'll talk to you laurie bellow was exactly the opposite chad was quiet in the background and according to court documents kind of running the show telling laurie about these zombie ideas telling her that people have turned evil, they've turned dark. And Lori would go ahead and believe these things to the point that, you know, we know what happened. Guys, I want you to take a listen now to our friends at KTVB, Boise, Idaho. This is, again, Misty Inglitt. Just 14 minutes after Alex leaves, Chad sends a text to his then-wife, Tammy Daybell.

The text reads, quote, I've had an interesting morning. I felt I should burn all the limb debris by the fire pit before it got too soaked by the coming storms. While I did so, I spotted a big raccoon along the fence. I hurried and got my gun and he was still walking along. I got close enough. One shot did the trick. He's now in our pet cemetery. Fun times. Police state this was suspicious because raccoons are nocturnal. Neighbors of Chad's also reported to police frequent bonfires at Chad's house, which was out of the norm. It almost makes me sick to hear that because he didn't shoot a raccoon.

He didn't bury a raccoon. He buried two children that he knew, Tylee and JJ, in his backyard. You know, to Dr. Kendall Crowns, Deputy Medical Examiner, Travis County, that's Austin. Dr. Crowns, it's so great to have you with us today. Tell me, Dr. Crowns, they've got to know what the COD cause of death is. They're not releasing it. They've got to know what it is, right? Well, not necessarily. If the bodies are severely decomposed or have been burned up to the point that all that's left of them is really bones, it may be difficult for them to determine exactly how the children died. Say if they were strangled or suffocated, the injuries may be minimal at best. And then with decomposition or burning away,

the evidence may be completely destroyed. Now they know the kids are dead. And of course, they know that they didn't die in natural means or even accidental, but they're probably still trying to figure out exactly what happened you know i was thinking back on uh what one of you guys said earlier they're trying to figure out who did oh it was nate eaton the new lawyer uh that they were trying to figure out who actually did the deed the murder and i'm saying it doesn't matter because they worked in concert that makes them each a co-conspirator in murder. And correct me if I'm wrong, Nate Eaton, but that is death penalty jurisdiction.

Is that right, Nate? Yes, no. Correct. Yeah. Idaho does have the death penalty. I want to circle back to two different things. One, how they found the location. And two, Nate Eaton, I know you are all up in this.

What do you think is going to be COD? Well, that's a great question. I couldn't speculate on that at this point. Nate, stop it. You know, you know that you have an idea about the cause of death. I think that the police will release that when they get there. Here's the sad part, Nancy, is that if you were going to kill children, which is a horrific thought in and of itself, why would anybody even think that? I don't think these kids were simply put to sleep and then buried. We know that.

J.J. was wrapped in plastic. He was wrapped in duct tape. There was a white plastic bag over his head. Tylee's remains were burned. She was dismembered. She was buried in the ground. It's not like these bodies were simply buried in a decent manner. They were tortured in a way, whether before they died or after they died. The way that they were disposed of was not a gentle, kind manner. So yeah, you mentioned the death penalty. This very well could be a death penalty case, considering all of the factors and considering the manner in which they were disposed. Nate Eaton, do me a favor. Slow it down a minute. Tell me everything you know

about the bodies of these two children slowly. Let's start with Tylee. We know that Tylee's remains were dismembered. She was dismembered before she died. We don't know the specifics about that, but we do know that her remains were also burned. And they found bones when they discovered her body. We know JJ was wrapped in, well, he was bound with duct tape, wrapped in plastic, and then there was a white plastic bag over his head. When you say that JJ was bound with duct tape, what do you mean by that? You mean post-mortem,

after his death, or were his hands and feet and mouth and nose covered in duct tape? The court documents did not go into that much detail, but I'm told that we should know more about that specifically, about both of their bodies, including the clothing that they were wearing, things like that within the coming weeks. So the burn pit that Daybell was feeding in his backyard was burning Tylee's body. And Cheryl McCollum, you know why I'm asking. How was JJ duct taped, right? Oh, absolutely. Explain.

Absolutely. But let's talk about Tylee first because I think that's relevant. There are things that are not going to burn in that fire pit. So things like a zipper or jewelry, things like that may tell us what was she wearing that would give us a better frame of the day she went missing. So she's in pajamas versus what she was seeing in her last photograph would help with the timeframe. The fact that she was dismembered and attempted to burn, they learned, hey, this is too much trouble. We can't burn her up.

So I believe that's why JJ was treated differently. He's wrapped. And the way he was buried, you've got sod on top of flat rock, on top of paneling. So they attempted to cover him and also very deeply in the ground. So this wasn't a shallow clandestine grave. This was not done quickly. They were trying to stop, you know, the odor of somebody decomposing. They were trying to stop, you know, animal activity. And that could very well be why he shot a raccoon if it were a raccoon because

prior to getting JJ in the ground they were trying to stop any signs of you know you know crows or buzzards or anything that would give somebody a heads up that something was dead on that property. Well the reality is Chad Daybell is a former grave digger so the man knows how to dig a grave. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. We are talking about cult mom Lori Vallow's children, Tylee and JJ, positively identified by their remains in her fifth husband's backyard, Chad Daybell. So far, only charges of concealment and destruction of evidence. That would be the children's bodies were found.

Buried. Why is Alex Cox there? And he's only there for like, I think it was about two hours. I guess he dropped off the dead bodies and left that to Chad Daybell to hide them. Joining me is a very special guest. You know his name because I always call on him. Telecommunications expert out of Raleigh, Ben Levitan at benlevitan.com. Ben, explain to me how these GPS, as I call them, but it's cell phone tracking, could place the avenging angel, brother Alex Cox, now also dead, at that backyard, not just the backyard, but in the same area of the backyard where the bodies have been found.

How does that work? It doesn't, Nancy. And I'm afraid, again, this is a case of the FBI way overstating the facts. The facts are, Nancy, every time you make a call or you receive a call or even send a text or receive a text, even try to, the cell phone company keeps a record of the date and time you did that, and it also records the cell tower to which you were closest at the time. Now, we know if Alex Koch made a phone call from Gilbert, Arizona, he was in Arizona.

His records would show that his phone connected to some cell tower in Gilbert. We cannot pinpoint that. All right, this is like a cell tower is a little radio station. That's all it is. And it probably goes in the Idaho area. That probably goes up five miles in every direction. We cannot pinpoint this location. Nancy, I do criminal cases where I'm on the defense against the FBI

cast department all the time. And this is where they get in trouble. They cannot blow this. Okay. So what they can state is he was in Gilbert, Arizona. Then they can state that he was in Idaho. They cannot pinpoint him on that property with the cell phone records. There is some possibility that he was using his GPS and they, they just can't. I mean, it stands to reason that he was on the, uh, you know, if they have him off a cell tower and the, in Rexburg and he, and that cell tower covers this compound. It stands to reason he was there, but they can't pinpoint him.

And Nancy, this is what the FBI does all the time. This cash department is about 17 agents. And you would think when you think FBI cell phone lab that they stole a bunch of people from AT&T and Verizon. Not one of these guys, Nancy, has ever worked in engineering or in the cell phone industry. These guys are good guys, they're good investigators, but cell phones is not their thing. So, you know, if they keep pushing to put this on Alex Scott and everything gets blamed on Alex Scott. He's dead and no one gets convicted, Nancy. So you have to take the evidence. Well, you know, I disagree with you right there, Ben Levitan.

I don't disagree with you regarding the cell phone data because locating a mobile phone based on a single cell tower can place the mobile phone in a very broad area, but it cannot pinpoint like within a blot. Now, as the phone connects to more towers than just one cell phone tower, the accuracy improves by using cell tower triangulation, which means three towers. You can assume that from triangle with three points. If you have three towers, it is possible, to my understanding of the science, to locate a cell phone to within an area of about half a mile to three-quarters of a mile.

Not in this area, Nancy. This is a very rural area. What if there are three cell towers? No. No, no. Address my question. Address my question. Address my question. If there is triangulation between three cell towers, Ben Levitan,

isn't it true that a cell phone can be ID located within about three-quarters of a mile? That's not true. I'm afraid it's not true. It's an apocryphal story that I hear all the time. Well, I guess you're going to disagree with the FCC. Okay, the Federal Communications Commission. But, all right, I respect your opinion. So let me ask you, Nate Eaton, what exactly are they saying about Alex Cox?

Because I bet you anything they had GPS tracking on him as well. Well, they could have had GPS tracking on his phone had he been turned on. They were able to determine that he had visited Chad's property only four times in that two, three month period. Two of the visits were very, very short. The longest visit was the two hour stay that you mentioned right after the disappearance of one of the kids. So it wasn't like he was going to Chad's every day and it was abnormal. They know that after he disposed of one of the bodies, apparently he stopped at Del Taco for lunch and stayed a few minutes and then went home the rest of the day.

So they were able to track his activity, the number of visits that he went out there, how long he stayed based off of whatever activity they were monitoring. Okay, hold on, hold on, hold on. So in his life, Alex Cox has been at Chad Daybell's four times. According to his phone. Can you tell me, Nate Eaton, how big is Chad Daybell's property? He has a pretty decent size. I'd say about an acre probably. Okay. It's not huge. That's good. That's good. I got it. An acre. Let's move on.

So do you know if there's more than one cell tower in the area, Nate Eaton? I personally don't know that. Well, you got to find out, Nate. I will find out. Okay. So even though Levitan disagrees with the FCC, according to the FCC, with three cell towers, you can triangulate down to three-quarters of a mile. He's been there four times in his life. And tell me, Nate Eaton, the last time that Alex Cox went to Chad Daybell's property, where the dead bodies were found, how close in time was that to the children's disappearance? It was the last time JJ was saw.

The next day, the day after JJ was last seen, he was at Chad Daybell's property. Got it. One last question. Regarding Alex Cox's Del Taco lunch, was that the day that JJ and Tylee went missing that we know of? Yes, it was that same day. It was the same day after he went to Daybell's house for two hours. And what can you tell me about the bonfire Chad Daybell had going in his house and the timing of that bonfire and the timing of the text to his wife that he shot a raccoon and buried it in the backyard? I don't know the specifics about the bonfires. We do know that neighbors told police that they were having more bonfires. There's a fire pit right in the backyard. One of the bodies was found right near the fire pit. And the timing of the raccoon, you think about this, had these people left their phones at home or somewhere else?

Police may have never found these bodies, but because Chad Daybell sent that text message to his wife around in the 11 o'clock hour that morning, right around the same time Alex was at the house, he sent those messages to Tammy saying he saw the raccoon. They pulled this off of Tammy's phone. They were able to say that Chad Daybell was doing something with Alex Cox in the backyard that day. He said that he shot the raccoon. He buried the raccoon to cover the tracks, obviously, that something was being buried. And then he said he was going to go right.

He was going to go right at the university. And Tammy responded and said, you know, fun times are good for you, something like that. And then he said, I'm back home. So it was that message to Tammy that placed him, that we're able to place him with Alex Cox that same day, that same time period, right after the disappearance of Tylee. Right now, we are waiting for additional charges and waiting to find the truth. We are waiting as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Goodbye, friend.