ADA COUNTY, Idaho — Chad Daybell’s children with Tammy Daybell were the first to be called to testify in their father’s defense.
Daybell’s attorney, John Prior, started presenting his case Monday in the triple murder trial in Idaho. Daybell is accused of killing his wife Lori Vallow’s two children, Tylee Ryan and JJ Vallow. He’s also accused of killing his first wife Tammy Daybell.
Chad Daybell has five adult children with his first wife Tammy Daybell. Their daughter Emma Murray testified first for the defense and talked about different topics related to the case. She said that her mother’s health was declining before her death in October 2019 in the family’s home.
“I’d never seen him more upset than in that moment,” Murray said, referring to her father’s reaction to her mother’s death.
She said she had no doubt that his grief appeared to be genuine, despite the fact he was having an affair with another woman at the time.
“I know the grief was real,” Murray said. “He may not have had the same romantic relationship that he had with my mother in the past, but I know he valued her as a person and seeing her die was very traumatic.”
The other woman in this case is Lori Vallow. She and Chad Daybell married just a few weeks after Tammy Daybell's death. Lori Vallow had recently moved her children, Tylee Ryan and JJ Vallow, from Arizona to Idaho to be with Chad.
Ryan and JJ Vallow's bodies were found buried in Chad Daybell’s backyard in June 2020. Vallow was convicted for her role in Ryan, JJ Vallowand Tammy Daybell's deaths last year and sentenced to life in prison in Idaho.
Murray testified that she talked with her father about Ryan and JJ Vallow's whereabouts before their bodies were discovered and she testified that he told her that the children were “in a safe place.”
Prosecutors rested their case last week after six weeks of testimony. They presented evidence that showed that Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow's dark religious beliefs led them to get rid of anyone who could get in the way of their relationship.
But Murray and later, Chad Daybell and Tammy Daybell's son Garth Daybell, both testified that their mother and father shared the same religious beliefs. They both testified that their parents’ discussed people being dark and light and rated people on a scale for that.
Murray testified that at one point she spoke to her parents about a dark entity in her causing anxiety.
“Dad cast it out using the power of the priesthood and then I felt better afterwards,” she told the jury.
She also noted that she was the one who searched wind directions, not her father, on the day Tylee Ryan died. This was evidence that the state brought up earlier in the trial.
Garth Daybell testified he was in the family home the night his mother died.
“Did you hear anything or any indication that there was any sort of sound or struggle?” Prior asked.
“I heard nothing,” Garth Daybell said on the stand.
We also learned that Garth Daybell was the subject of a grand jury looking at him for possible perjury in this case. He was never indicted on any charges and testified that he felt prosecutors and officers tried to pressure him into changing his story.
The final witness to take the stand for the defense Monday was Chad Daybell’s son-in-law, Joseph Murray, who is Emma Murray's husband. The couple lived kitty-corner to the Daybell house at the time of the alleged crimes. They now live in the Daybell home.
His testimony is set to continue Tuesday morning.
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