Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow in January 2020.
Newly released police reports detail the love affair between two people charged in winding, bizarre, religion-infused murder cases. The names Lori Daybell, 48, (a.k.a. Lori Vallow) and her husband Chad Daybell, 53, will be familiar. They have each been implicated, to one degree or another, in killing victims including her children and his previous wife.
“Tonight I figured out who I feel like,” Chad Daybell texted Lori before they were married, according to Chandler, Arizona police reports obtained by East Idaho News. “I’m a grown-up version of Harry Potter, who has to live with the Dudleys in his little space under the stairs. Every few weeks I get to escape and have amazing adventures with my Goddess lover, but then I have to return to my place under the stairs, feeling trapped. But I sense permanent freedom is coming!”
Chad Daybell called 911 on Oct. 19, 2019 telling authorities in Salem, Idaho that his then-wife Tammy Daybell had died. Investigators considered this a natural death and did not perform an autopsy at the time. Daybell’s five children said they — not their father — declined that autopsy.
The coroner initially told them it seemed that their mother died of natural causes, and they believed it because her health was failing, they told 48 Hours. Sources close to the investigation said that Tammy died of asphyxiation, according to the report. Chad’s son Mark Daybell told 48 Hours that authorities said the cause was asphyxiation.
But Tammy’s passing was not the first or last death surrounding this case. Lori Daybell’s children Joshua “JJ’ Vallow, 7, and Tylee Ryan, 16, had gone missing from their home in Rexburg, Idaho in September 2019. Officers discovered them on Chad’s property the following June in Fremont County, Idaho. Lori’s brother Alex Cox shot and killing her previous husband Charles Vallow in July, 2019 when the family lived in Arizona. Cox insisted the shooting was in self-defense. Lori and Chad Daybell married in the wake of all this tragedy in early November, traveling out to Hawaii, police said.
The couple snubbed officers’ attempts to find the missing kids, according to cops. Then Cox died Dec. 12, 2019 of what Arizona authorities called a bloodclot.
Now the Daybells are accused of murdering the kids, with Chad Daybell charged with killing his late wife Tammy as well. Lori is accused of conspiracy in murdering Charles. Alex Cox is accused of conspiring in the deaths of the children and Tammy.
Texts from Chandler police showed Chad expressing effusive adoration for Lori, and even writing her an evocative “romance novel of sorts” about characters named “James” and “Elena.”
“I am heading to bed so that I can come snuggle tightly against you,” he allegedly texted her two days after Cox shot and killed Charles Vallow. “I adore you! You are truly my best friend on earth and throughout eternity. See you in a minute!”
Of all the deaths, Chad Daybell is not charged in connection to Cox killing Charles Vallow.
[Screenshot via East Idaho News]