The Doomsday Mom: The Complete Story of Lori Vallow Daybell and Chad Daybell

Kay and Larry Woodcock had been worried for months. Kay later said their last conversation with JJ, a FaceTime call on August 10, 2019, lasted less than a minute. “That was a 35-second FaceTime … He said, ‘Hi Mama, hi Papa,'” she testified. After that, nothing. “We don’t know why we weren’t allowed more access to him, but we reached out constantly in every way,” Kay said, “email, voicemail, text, phone call, whatever – and never, ever got a response so that was very concerning to us.”

In late November 2019, the Woodcocks asked Rexburg police to check on their grandson.

November 26: The Welfare Check

Officers went to Lori’s apartment complex on November 26, 2019. The stories they heard didn’t match. According to a police affidavit, Chad “acted as if he didn’t know Lori very well and stated he didn’t know her phone number.” Alex Cox told officers JJ was with his grandmother Kay in Louisiana. Lori said JJ was with her friend Melanie Gibb in Arizona.

Both claims were false. That same day, Chad and Lori separately contacted Gibb and asked her to back up the lie. Gibb refused. She later testified that Lori asked her to “pick up my phone and … take a picture of random kids to make it look like it was JJ.” She also testified that Chad warned her not to answer if Rexburg police called.

The next day, police came back with search warrants for the apartments of Lori, Alex, and Melani. JJ wasn’t there. In Lori’s apartment, officers found a bottle of Risperidone, a medication, with JJ’s name on it. In the storage unit Lori had rented, they found his blanket, his backpack, and his toys. By then, police believe, Lori had already left Rexburg with Chad.

On December 1, Chad and Lori flew to Hawaii without the children.

“He Is Safe and Happy”

On December 6, Melanie Gibb told police that Chad and Lori had asked her to lie. Two days later, she secretly recorded a phone call with the couple. When she asked, “Is JJ safe?” Lori answered, “He is safe and happy.”

Gibb pushed back. “If you really love me, you wouldn’t have told the police that I had JJ with me,” she said. “That’s not what a friend does.” In another part of the call, later played for jurors, Gibb told Lori: “I mean Tammy dies, and then your husband died, and then (JJ’s) missing. It just doesn’t sound like God’s plan.” And: “I believe you have been deceived by Satan. He has tricked you.”

Lori brushed her off. “You know me, Mel,” she said. “This sounds like you’re being influenced by somebody dark.”

December 2019: The Case Breaks Open

Things moved quickly after that. On December 11, 2019, investigators exhumed Tammy Daybell’s body in Utah because her death was now considered suspicious, and an autopsy was performed.

The next day, December 12, Alex Cox died in Gilbert, Arizona, at 51. The Maricopa County Medical Examiner later ruled his death natural, caused by blood clots in his lungs. Whatever Alex knew, he took it with him.

On December 20, Rexburg police announced publicly that JJ and Tylee were missing and that the case might be connected to Tammy’s death. The next day, they named Chad and Lori as persons of interest. Police said the couple had never reported the children missing and had repeatedly lied to investigators.

The couple’s attorney, Sean Bartholick, released a statement: “Chad Daybell was a loving husband and has the support of his children in this matter,” and “Lori Daybell is a devoted mother and resents assertions to the contrary. We look forward to addressing the allegations once they have moved beyond speculation and rumor.”

On December 30, Rexburg police issued a sharply worded release saying the children’s “lives are in danger” and that they believed “the mother knows where they are or what happened to them.” The release said: “It is astonishing that rather than work with law enforcement to help us locate her own children,” … “Lori Vallow has chosen instead to leave the state with her new husband.” Police also revealed that the couple had told people that “Lori’s daughter had died a year before the death of her father.”

January 2020: A Deadline in Hawaii

On January 3, 2020, local investigators and the FBI searched Chad’s home in Salem and took 43 items, including computers, phones, and journals. A few days later, Kay and Larry Woodcock announced a $20,000 reward for information leading to the children. Larry made clear he still had hope: “We don’t say the ‘D word,'” he said. “All I want before I go is just to see those children.”

Chad’s brother Matt Daybell publicly urged him to cooperate with police. The couple didn’t.

On January 25, Kauai police served Lori with a court order to produce JJ and Tylee to authorities in Idaho within five days. “It’s our sincere hope that the children have a safe return,” said Kauai Police Chief Todd G. Raybuck. The next day, police stopped Chad and Lori at the Kauai Beach Resort, seized their rental car, and searched their townhome in Princeville. EastIdahoNews.com reporter Nate Eaton confronted the couple on camera, and the footage was seen around the world.

The deadline passed on January 30 at 5 p.m. Lori did not produce the children. “We both had our hopes up a lot today that we would hopefully be able to see our grandson, and now I’m quite disappointed,” Kay Woodcock said. “I hope it’s something that will get her attention because I’d love to know where those kids are. All of America would love to know where they are.”

The Arrest

On February 20, 2020, Kauai police arrested Lori on a warrant from Madison County, Idaho, with bail set at $5 million. She was charged with two felony counts of desertion and nonsupport of dependent children, along with misdemeanor charges of resisting or obstructing officers, criminal solicitation, and contempt of court. “The children were last seen in Idaho and there is no indication that they are on Kauai,” Kauai police said.

Lori waived extradition and was flown back to Rexburg on March 5. The next day, a magistrate judge lowered her bail to $1 million, which she couldn’t pay. Chad sat in the courtroom to support her. He remained free, living in his home in Salem.

June 9, 2020: The Discovery

Investigators had been studying Alex Cox’s phone records, and they kept pointing to the same place. Around 7 a.m. on June 9, 2020, Rexburg police, Fremont County deputies, and the FBI’s Evidence Response Team arrived at Chad Daybell’s property in Salem with a search warrant.

Near the pond behind the house, where Alex’s phone had been on September 23, investigators removed a layer of sod and found rocks, wood paneling, and beneath them, a body wrapped in black plastic and duct tape. Rexburg Detective Ray Hermosillo later testified: “As soon as they removed the wood paneling, I could smell the odor of a decomposing body.”

In the pet cemetery area near a fire pit, where Chad had said he buried a “raccoon,” investigators first found the remains of buried pets. About a foot down, near some bricks, they found what the affidavit described as “charred tissue and charred bones.” A forensic expert identified them as “non-adult human remains.”

Chad had watched the search from his vehicle. Detective Hermosillo testified that Chad looked toward the area near the pond and the fire pit. When JJ’s remains were found, Chad drove off in his SUV. Police stopped him about a mile away at around 11:30 a.m. and took him into custody. He was charged that day with two felony counts of destroying, altering, or concealing evidence, and his bail was set at $1 million.

Within days, authorities confirmed that the remains were JJ Vallow and Tylee Ryan. Tylee was identified through dental records. “It is not the outcome we had hoped; to be able to find the children safe,” Rexburg police said.

What the Autopsies Showed

Forensic pathologist Dr. Garth Warren later testified that JJ died of asphyxiation. A plastic bag had been placed over his head and wrapped with duct tape, and his hands were bound. “He was found with a plastic bag over his head, it was tight and there were signs of a struggle,” Warren said. Detective Hermosillo testified that JJ was found wearing red pajamas.

Tylee’s remains had been dismembered and burned, and very little could be identified. Warren listed her cause of death as “homicide by unspecified means.” He testified there was no evidence she was alive when she was burned.

On June 29, 2020, prosecutors added charges against Lori: two felony counts of conspiracy to destroy, alter, or conceal evidence. Murder charges were still to come.