Vallow-Daybell Trial Updates (Rexburg, Clark Fork: apartment, insurance, crime)

[Clark Fork Fantast]

Some of us have been following this horrible story of Lori Vallow and Clay Daybell, the search for Lori's missing children, Tylee and JJ, and the discovery of their bodies, not to mention the strange deaths of other family members. Here is the latest in the saga: First (virtual) court appearance of the couple:

https://www.krem.com/article/news/cr...c-e7fe1cf44d40

The duo appeared in court separately over Zoom Wednesday morning. Daybell, clad in a white shirt and red tie, sat quietly next to his lawyer as the charges were read, speaking up to respond "yes I do" when asked if he understood the possible penalties if he is convicted. Daybell will next appear in court June 9 for an arraignment.

Vallow's appearance was much briefer. After a late start to the hearing, Judge Faren Eddins announced that he had been asked by the defense to push back the court appearance due to "exigent circumstances." Neither the judge nor Vallow's attorney said what issue necessitated postponing the hearing.

[banjomike]

The exigent circumstances were made clear today.
In March, "a judge" (the report didn't say which one) ordered a mental evaluation of Lori Vallow Daybell.

She was examined by a psychologist who, in the first of April wrote a report that said she needed treatment and was unfit to stand trial at this time.

So another judge issued a halt to the proceedings today until this issue has been resolved. The report said nothing about what treatment was needed, and several other things that left Lori's competency up in the air.

It appears now that her proceedings will be stalled for a while, but Chad's proceedings could go on. I think that Madison and Fremont Counties wanted to hold a joint trial, as it would save money, but that might not happen now.

Chad lived just over the county line in Fremont, and Lori lived inside Rexburg, in Madison County. Each was due to charged separately earlier this week, but Lori's proceedings stopped before she heard the charges, while Chad's did not, and he heard all of his.

Both are charged with 1st degree murder, conspiracy to murder, insurance fraud, and a host of lesser charges.

Yesterday, the Police Dept. in Chandler, Arizona announced they were requesting murder charges to be brought on Lori of the shooting death of her husband Charles Vallow. Her brother, Alex Cox, shot Vallow, then claimed self-defense, and the cops took his word on it and never investigated further.
Charles' sister and brother-in-law, the Woodcocks, pressed Chandler to investigate Charles' death, and that began the investigation. The Coroner officially changed Charles' death certificate to homicide.

Mr. & Mrs. Woodcock are the couple who got all of this rolling in October 2019. They are J.J.'s grandparents; his mother is their daughter, but couldn't care for the little guy. So Mrs. Woodcock's brother Charles adopted J.J. to keep him in the family.
Apparently he was too much for Lori, as he was very hyper but very affectionate, so the little boy spent a lot of time with his grandparents. Charles got along fine with the little boy, but that was what started the Vallow's bitter divorce.

Charles took out a $1 million insurance policy, intended to fund J.J.'s care if Charles died, with Lori as the recipient. But after she began to fight with Charles, Charles changed the beneficiary of the policy to the Woodcocks.

It's very complicated, and nothing yet has been proven, but the most likely scenario is:
Lori was devoutly LDS and became a doomsday prepper while in Arizona after reading some of Chad Daybell's apocalyptic LDS novels. She met Chad through her friend Melanie Gibb, who knew him, and the pair got the hots for each other.

Thinking she would get the insurance money, she first divorced Charles, then her brother killed him, and she left Chandler for Rexburg, where Chad had lived for some time. Lori took her daughter Tylee Ryan, her child from an earlier marriage, and J.J. with her, and rented an apartment in Rexburg. Then discovered she wasn't going to get the insurance.

But, since she had the boy, believed she could cut a deal with the Woodcocks for him. Shortly after her arrival, Chad's wife Tammy died suddenly, and was quickly buried in her home town in Utah. The Woodcocks were kept in the dark about all of this, but discovered Lori had split for Rexburg, so they called the Rexburg police for a welfare check.

...and then, Chad and Lori took off for Hawaii and were married there. Chad received about $350,000 from a policy he took out on his wife.

It all unravelled from there.
It's so amazing it would be hard to believe if it was fiction.
Lori has been married 4 or 5 times. 3 of her husbands died. Her brother Alex died. 2 of her 3 children died, and Chad's first wife died. Chad was the supposed leader of a doomsday cult, but it's uncertain if it was actually a cult or not. Lori's niece followed her from Arizona to Idaho after suddenly divorcing her first husband and marrying her second shortly afterward.

Melanie Gibb , Lori's friend, and Gibb's boyfriend were likely the last people to see J.J. alive, and Lori pressed Gibb to lie to the cops and say she had J.J. after the Rexburg cops came. By then Gibb had returned to Arizona. Fearing something very bad had happened, Gibb contacted the Rexburg police and gave them enough story an arrest warrant was issued for the Daybells, who by then were in Hawaii.

There are a lot of incidental characters who may be involved; members of the doomsday group, other family members, etc. Quite a few Rexburg folks think the Daybells were assisted in various ways by these various bit players.

Keith Morrison, the Dateline crime reporter/ narrator, said he's never seen a case like this, and he's sure seen a lot of them.

What's the most amazing to me is: Lori is only 46 years old. Chad is 51. Neither have any prior criminal record.

[banjomike]

The best news source for this saga is a website, East Idaho News.

https://www.eastidahonews.com

It's a small local news organization that was begun by Frank Vandersloot a while back to cover local stories that were being missed by other news outfits in the Upper Snake River valley. Human interest stories, local traffic street closures, criminal reports, fires out in the country, and similar stuff.

Reporter Nate Eton is their guy.
He's locally known for being a real news hound who's very quick to catch a breaking story.
Nate was the first to pick up on this, and he's covered it like a blanket ever since.

He tracked the Daybells to Hawaii, and was able to hover over the kid's burial site in a help while the FBI were still at work. He's interviewed just about everyone who would talk to him, including folks in Arizona, Utah, Hawaii, Louisiana, and others.

Nate's reportage, both his live presentations and written articles, is very concise and excellent. He's managed to uncover all the complexities and present them very clearly.

Until all this stuff happened, Nate was mostly doing stories about pound puppies, volunteers who help others, a Secret Santa who gives worth folks big surprise gifts at Christmas, and similar stuff.

And now, Nate's a crackerjack crime reporter. I expect he'll be nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage.

Lori's lawyer wants him subpeonaed as a witness, but the press association down here is fighting that as a freedom of fhe press issue.

[Clark Fork Fantast]

Chad Daybell entered plea of not guilty:
https://www.krem.com/article/news/cr...3-e942a8f4c709

Chad Daybell was indicted in May on charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, grand theft by deception, grand theft, and insurance fraud.

He pleaded not guilty to all nine counts, meaning the case will go forward to a trial.

[banjomike]

Lori was found mentally incompetent to stand trial. She's going into a mental facility for treatment for 60 days and then will be re-examined.

Originally, I think the plan was to try them both at the same time, but it won't happen now.

[cleosmom]

Originally Posted by banjomike

Lori was found mentally incompetent to stand trial. She's going into a mental facility for treatment for 60 days and then will be re-examined.

Originally, I think the plan was to try them both at the same time, but it won't happen now.

When I say this, I'm sincere, there would have to be an imbalance to take your own children's lives. Daybell going to trial will be interesting, this case has grabbed the world's attention.

[Clark Fork Fantast]

Originally Posted by cleosmom

When I say this, I'm sincere, there would have to be an imbalance to take your own children's lives. Daybell going to trial will be interesting, this case has grabbed the world's attention.

Yes, you'd think a person participating in killing their own children, thinking they were "zombies," would automatically be classified as insane. But I assume the court will be using the sanity criterion (can't remember what it's called, but there is a legal term for it) of whether she understood that there would be consequences, and an action revealing such an understanding would be any kind of cover-up, such as for her to leave town--which she did. So I think she'll have to stand trial after all, but part of her defense could be that she was brainwashed by Daybell.

Looked it up: The "M'Naught criterion"!

[banjomike]

Idaho doesn't have an insanity defense. If a person is found to be mentally unable to stand trial, they are committed to a state facility where they are treated and constrained until they are able to understand the essentials of a trial.

Although I think Lori is less than insane but is ask mentally disturbed as Cleosmom believes she is, I doubt she's trying to pull the wool over the judges eyes.

I'm sure that by now, someone has informed her that if she's stying to use insanity as a way out of prison, she's learned that it can actually become a life sentence is a prison hospital that has no parole or release.

After a series of evaluations over a prescribed time period, a judge can sentence her to an indefinite stay until there's some sign of a mental change.

[cleosmom]

Originally Posted by Clark Fork Fantast

Yes, you'd think a person participating in killing their own children, thinking they were "zombies," would automatically be classified as insane. But I assume the court will be using the sanity criterion (can't remember what it's called, but there is a legal term for it) of whether she understood that there would be consequences, and an action revealing such an understanding would be any kind of cover-up, such as for her to leave town--which she did. So I think she'll have to stand trial after all, but part of her defense could be that she was brainwashed by Daybell.

Looked it up: The "M'Naught criterion"!

Yes! I was near Illinois when Jeffrey Dahmer's sanity trial was going on in Chicago. He was found competent to stand trial as he knew the difference between right and wrong. The situation that was a determining factor was when at one point he was pulled over for a traffic infraction. The officer requested to look into his vehicle, no probable cause so the request. Dahmer refused. Why? Be had bodies in garbage bags in the trunk and knew it was "something that could get him in trouble".

[banjomike]

Originally Posted by cleosmom

When I say this, I'm sincere, there would have to be an imbalance to take your own children's lives. Daybell going to trial will be interesting, this case has grabbed the world's attention.

This is just my conjecture, but I'm sure Lori only wanted JJ for the $1 Million insurance policy Charles Vallow took out to make sure JJ was cared for all his life.

Originally, Lori was to be JJ's guardian if Vallow died, but he changed the guardianship to his sister, Kay Woodcock after he and Lori divorced.
Lori was very good to JJ when she had the guardianship, but not so much after she learned of the change. She hung on to JJ in hopes of getting the insurance released to her somehow.

But when the Woodcocks put the cops on her trail, she decided JJ had to go.

Tylee cared for JJ the most and the most often, and she was very close to him. At 16, Tylee was old enough to know what was going on with her mother, so if JJ had to go, so did Tylee.

There has to be cold blood running in the veins of a woman who's been married 5 times and has 3 known deceased former husbands. Lori is only 46 now. I wouldn't expect a woman that young would have that many dead husbands.