Chad Daybell says wife Tammy is ‘clearly dead’ in disturbing 911 call weeks before he married Lori Vallow
Tammy’s sister took the witness stand, coming face to face for the first time with the woman accused of conspiring to murder her and steal her life insurance money
The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday
Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US
Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US
Chad Daybell made a chilling 911 call saying that his wife Tammy was “clearly dead” after he had allegedly conspired with Lori Vallow to murder her so they could run off to Hawaii to get married.
The 911 call, from 19 October 2019, was played to jurors at Ms Vallow’s trial in Boise, Idaho, on Friday where the so-called “doomsday cult mom” is charged with the murders of Tammy and her two children Joshua “JJ” Vallow, seven, and Tylee Ryan, 16.
In the call, one of Tammy’s sons tells the dispatcher they have just found his 49-year-old mother on the ground “frozen”.
“We just found my mom. She’s on the ground frozen... or she’s stiff. I don’t know,” he says.
Mr Daybell, who is standing trial separately for the murders at a later date, then comes on the phone and makes an abrupt statement about his wife.
“I’m Chad, the husband. She’s clearly dead,” he says.
Mr Daybell appears to be crying in the call as he says the phrases “oh no,” “oh man” and “she’s frozen”.
Now, he is accused of killing her by asphyxiation so he could marry Ms Vallow, they could get access to Tammy’s life insurance money and in pursuit of their cult beliefs.
Tammy was an otherwise healthy 49-year-old when she died suddenly that day – around a month after Ms Vallow’s two children JJ and Tylee were allegedly murdered and buried on Chad Daybell’s property in Rexburg, Idaho.
At the time, Mr Daybell declined an autopsy for his wife and her mysterious death was ruled natural causes.
Weeks later – on 5 November 2019 – Mr Daybell and Ms Vallow flew to Hawaii and got married on a beach.
That December – as authorities closed in on the whereabouts of the missing children – Tammy’s body was exhumed and an autopsy found that she died by asphyxiation.
Tammy’s sister Samantha Gwilliam took the witness stand on Thursday and Friday, coming face to face for the first time with the woman accused of conspiring to kill her sibling.
She testified that her sister was “very healthy” before her death and that she had a feeling that something didn’t add up about her sudden death.
Ms Gwilliam said that she saw Tammy about two weeks before her death and “she did not look sick at all”.
She then got a call from Mr Daybell telling her that her sister had died – claiming she died in her sleep after being very sick.
One month later, she said she was “devastated” to learn that Mr Daybell had married Ms Vallow just weeks after Tammy’s death on 5 November 2019
“You don’t get married four weeks after you just buried your wife of almost 30 years. You just don’t do that,” she said.
She told the court she confronted Mr Daybell about it and he told her his new wife was named Lori Ryan and that her husband had died recently too – from a heart attack.
He also told her that “there’s no children and they’re going to be empty nesters,” she said.
In reality, Ms Vallow’s fourth husband Charles Vallow was shot dead by her brother Alex Cox in July 2019.
And Ms Vallow had two young children – JJ and Tylee – who vanished without a trace in September 2019. Their remains were found months later buried on the Daybell property.
After doing her research about her sister’s husband’s new wife, Ms Gwilliam said that she learned about Vallow’s death and also noticed a comment on his obituary from JJ’s grandmother Kay Woodcock saying “we will take care of JJ”.
That’s when she realised that there was in fact children involved, she said.
Ms Gwilliam choked back emotion as she said she was suspicious about her sister’s death.
“[I felt] something had happened to her and I didn’t even know why,” she said.
“I had no reason to suspect Chad. I had no reason to suspect anything but I do feel as a spiritual person myself that my sister was telling me something had happened to her.”
Just 10 days before Tammy was murdered – on 9 October 2019 – she had been shot at by a masked man on the driveway of her home.
The mother-of-five had returned from the grocery store and was unloading items when she noticed a man in all black, jurors heard.
The man fired two shots at her and then fled.
Ms Gwilliam recalled her sister saying she thought it might be a teenager at the time.
Jurors heard the 911 calls from the incident – one made by Tammy and one by her son-in-law Joseph Murray.
“I pulled up into our driveway and I was getting stuff out of the backseat of my car. He had a paintball gun like he was going to shoot at me. I kept asking what he was doing and I yelled for my husband. He took off behind my housed,” Tammy is heard telling the dispatcher.
“The man in the driveway didn’t say anything. He was holding the gun like he had a rifle and was shooting at me but nothing came out of the gun so I don’t think it was loaded.”
No shell casings or paintball evidence was ever found at the scene.
Just 10 days later, Tammy was dead.
Doomsday writer Mr Daybell and Tammy married in 1990 and had five children together. They also founded a publishing company together – the company that released his doomsday books.
But, in October 2018, Mr Daybell and Ms Vallow met at a religious conference in Utah. Prosecutors say this was both the start of their romance – and of a descent into extreme cult beliefs and murders.
In July 2019, Ms Vallow’s fourth husband Charles Vallow was shot dead by Cox in what he claimed at the time was self-defence.
Ms Vallow then moved JJ and Tylee from Arizona to Idaho, allegedly to be close to Mr Daybell, before they vanished without a trace in September.
Tammy then died one month later and Ms Vallow and Mr Daybell married.
In June 2020, JJ and Tylee’s remains were discovered buried in Mr Daybell’s backyard.
JJ died by asphyxiation with multiple layers of plastic bags wrapped around the little boy’s head and duct tape over his mouth, jurors heard at trial. Tylee’s cause of death was impossible to determine because her remains were so badly burned and mutilated.
Prosecutors allege that Ms Vallow and Mr Daybell conspired with Ms Vallow’s brother Alex Cox to murder Tammy, JJ and Tylee as part of their doomsday cult beliefs – but also for financial purposes so that they could collect Tammy’s life insurance money and the children’s social security and survivor benefits.
As part of their cult beliefs, the couple believed in a “rating system of light and dark” for how they ranked the spirits of the people around them.
Over time, this evolved into the belief that some people – including the children – were “zombies” and the only way to get rid of the zombies was for the human body to be destroyed.
Ms Vallow is now on trial charged with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in the death of Tammy, and first-degree murder, conspiracy and grand theft in connection with the deaths of JJ and Tylee. She is also charged with related financial crimes.
Mr Daybell is also charged with the same counts – as well as a count of first-degree murder in the death of Tammy – but is due to stand trial separately at a later date.
Cox, meanwhile, died before he could face charges.
On 11 December 2019, Cox died suddenly at the age of 51. His death was also ruled natural causes, with indications of a blood clot wedged in the arteries of his lungs. However the overdose drug Narcan was also found in his system.
Ms Vallow is also facing charges in Arizona of conspiring with Cox to murder Vallow.