Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell professed their love for each other and spoke of prayer as investigators dug for her kid's bodies on his property.
East Idaho News/Tony Blakeslee
BOISE, Idaho — Jurors on Wednesday heard the voices of Lori Vallow and her husband Chad Daybell for the first time in her trial for allegedly conspiring to murder her two youngest children and Daybell's late wife.
During the third day of testimony at the Ada County Courthouse, prosecutors played a recorded phone call between Vallow and Daybell from inside Idaho's Madison County jail on June 9, 2020.
Daybell — an author of doomsday novels — was at his home in nearby Salem, Idaho, where law enforcement had just arrived with a search warrant.
"I'm glad you called," Daybell said.
"What can I do for you?" Vallow asked.
"Pray," Daybell responded. "I'm feeling pretty calm."
Within moments, police would find shallow graves containing the remains of 7-year-old J.J. Vallow and his sister Tylee Ryan. Tylee had vanished just days before her 17th birthday.
Daybell's voice was resigned and morose in the call. He took long pauses between words.
Vallow's voice grew softer, higher-pitched, and more tender during the brief conversation.
"They're seizing stuff again?" Vallow asked early in the conversation, sounding alarmed.
"They're searching," Daybell said slowly. "There's a search warrant."
"All we can do is pray," Vallow said softly.
Wednesday's testimony began with Rexburg Police Det. Ray Hermosillo, a prosecution witness. Hermosillo had helped search Daybell's property and described to the jury the state of the remains when he found them in the soil: "teeth, charred bone, little burnt pieces of flesh," he testified.
Jurors also heard from Lt. Joseph Powell, of the Fremont County Sheriff's Office, who helped exhume the body of Daybell's late wife, Tammy Daybell, in order to perform an autopsy. It revealed she had been asphyxiated.
Photographs were projected onto a screen of her casket being removed from the cemetery in her hometown of Springville, Utah.
Powell said he learned during his investigation that Tammy Daybell, a mother of five who was married to Chad Daybell for 28 years, had been treated for depression shortly before she was allegedly murdered on Oct. 19, 2019.
Vallow and Daybell wed in Hawaii two weeks later.
In February 2020, Vallow was arrested in Hawaii after failing to cooperate with police in the investigation into her missing children and was extradited to Idaho.
Daybell is being tried seperately in the killings of J.J., Tylee, and Tammy. Vallow is also awaiting trial on Arizona charges stemming from the fatal shooting of her former husband, Charles Vallow.
Madison County Sheriff's Lt. James Willmore testified on Wednesday that Vallow spoke to Daybell from jail numerous times.
On their June 9, 2020, call, Daybell asked Vallow to pray as law enforcement was scouring his land.
She asked if she could call him later, but he was hesitant.
"I don't know. I don't know, you can try," he said. "I'll answer if I can."
