In this episode of Body Bags, hosts Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack unearth the details of Tammy Daybell's untimely death in Rexburg, Idaho.
They dissect the initial misdiagnosis of a heart event and navigate through a labyrinth of murder allegations ensnaring her husband, Chad Daybell, and his new wife, Lori Vallow Daybell.
They also highlight the crucial role of the coroner, the complexities of exhumation procedures, and the startling forensic evidence that contradicts prior claims about Tammy's death.
Subscribe to Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan :
Time-codes:
00:00 - Intro.
01:25 - Introduction of Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow Daybell's connection to Tammy's death.
02:45 - Overview of Tammy Daybell's life and suspicious circumstances around her death.
05:50 - Critique of the initial lack of an autopsy and conflicting reports about Tammy's health.
08:40 - Discussion on the mysterious deaths surrounding Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow.
10:20 - Challenges of determining cause of death without an autopsy and the importance of the coroner's role.
16:30 - Overview of the complex circumstances surrounding the investigation.
18:05 - Examination of physical clues found on Tammy's body and ensuing exhumation.
21:00 - Tammy's alleged convulsions and implications, with Chad as the sole source of information.
24:15 - Explanation of the legal proceedings surrounding Tammy's exhumation.
27:05 - Emphasis on the role of detailed evidence in post-mortem examinations.
29:05 - Revelation of restraint and asphyxiation as the cause of Tammy's death.
33:30 - Forensic techniques used to understand Tammy's death.
35:00 - Speculation on multiple perpetrators and scrutiny of the timeline following Tammy's death.
37:15 - Conclusion and sign off from the episode of Body Bags.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan, Rexburg, Idaho. It's one
of those places I've never actually been to Idaho. I
have been on the western bank of the Snake River
(00:32):
in Oregon and have looked over into Idaho, and it's beautiful, beautiful,
very appealing to the eye. And the environment is incredibly
varied there. You know, you got the rockies that run
through there, you got these you know, kind of high
desert plains and all these sorts of things. But never
in my imagination did first off, did I think that
I would talk about the state of Idaho as much
(00:54):
as I have, I guess over the past four years,
five years, however long it's spend. I want to focus
on Rexpert today and one of the citizens of Expert,
a female citizen. She has been documented in the news
now for load of these many years, perhaps one of
(01:15):
the biggest mysteries surrounding this bizarre, murderous environment that was
inhabited by Chad Daybell and Lorie Valor Dabeill. Today we're
going to discuss finally the findings of the autopsy of
Tammy Dabell. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is Body
(01:39):
Bags Dave mac been waiting for info. You know that
there's that part of me that wants to know, But
there's that old investigator within me that knows why I
should not know. You know what I'm saying, Because it's
not about how much stuff can be flooded out into
(02:03):
the media, how much data, how much information. It's about
a trial that is going to determine whether or not
you're going to have individuals held responsible for murder.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
There are shocking parts of this case every day, meaning
because we've dealt with so many other aspects of the
relationship between Lourie Valo and Chad day Bell, and when
you look at those two, if you put them at
the top of the pyramid chant, you know you're going
to find a lot of death and destruction of people
and families, all because of Chad day Bell and his
(02:41):
first real big follower, Lori Valo. We could deal with
that later on. Today we're talking about Tammy Dave Bell.
Tammy was forty nine years old. She and Chad day
Bell married in March of nineteen ninety. They had twenty
eight years together, five children together, just a wonderful little family.
(03:01):
I don't know if you're aware of this. But Tammy
day Bell was somebody that she was very respected. Co
workers said she was a computer whiz. Meanwhile, Chad day
Bell was really he didn't have much of a professional career. Really.
The only thing Chad had with the books that he
wrote that took Mormonism and really went down the wrong
rabbit hole and twisted and turned and whatever. But it
(03:25):
was Tammy day Bell that actually was the one person
that that family could count on.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
The rock in that family. And I'm glad you mentioned
this because she was a rock in the community as well.
You remember when you were in well elementary school, middle school,
junior high I think when we were kids that still
call it junior high and high school. There was some
media specialists, the librarian and everyone. It didn't matter what
grades you were in, You're going to pass through the
library at some point in tom that's that person. That's
(03:54):
what Tammy did for a living. So any group of
people that passed through the schools there in Rexburg got hod.
They knew Tammy. They knew her from church and whatnot
and everything else that she was engaged with. And these
these children that her and Chad had produced together, these
were adult children now and they were in her life
and children for a family. They're like little ships that
(04:15):
are set of saale left. You bring them to bring
them to adulthood. You know, they go forth and you
know they're carrying your name with them. Good behavior or
bad behavior, they're known, and certainly she was known as well.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
And it was a good known, you know, regardless of
what people thought of Chad, Tammy day Bell was looked
upon with a respect and a dignity that really and
truly did not fit her demise. To really make this short,
because I know we've covered so many things associated with
this story. Kind of catching up a little bit. Tammy
and Chad have been married for twenty eight years, they
(04:47):
had the five children. When it came down to October
of twenty nineteen, there was a lot happening with Chad
day Bell kind of being the puppet master. And that's
why we're dealing with at forty nine years old, a
seemingly healthy woman died in her sleep. Suppose that's what
we're told. This is the nuts and bolts. Okay, we
(05:09):
have Lori Vallo on Lori Valo day Bell on trial
right now for the murder of her own children, and
then an accessory with Tammy Day Bell's passing. Most of
us were totally shocked to find out two weeks after
Tammy Day Bell passes away, Chad day Bell marries Lori
Vallo on the beach in Hawaii. Two weeks. That's it,
(05:33):
twenty eight years.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
How do you do that?
Speaker 2 (05:35):
You couldn't wait twenty eight days, no matter of fact, Joe,
you know what. It came out in court that he
Chad introduced Lori Vallo as his future wife a week
after Tammy Day Bell was dead. Okay, at first there
was no autopsy. How does a forty nine year old
woman just die in her sleep? Chad let it be
(05:57):
known that she had been suffering to a number of
medical issues. Friends said she wasn't she was trending for
a marathon. So we have these two differences of opinion.
Chad and Tammy's children claim they were the reason there
was no autopsy done on their mother. I find that
hard to believe, but that's what they said on CBS News.
(06:19):
They said, no, it was not our dad. We were
the ones that didn't want an autopsy. I kind of
have a feeling that Chad told them we don't want
an autopsy.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
For those that aren't familiar in the medical legal environment,
the children do not make that decision. That decision is
actually made by the living spouse. That's how this works.
He is the one that would have made that final
determination as to whether or not her remains would have
been examined by a medical examiner a forensic pathologist, and
(06:52):
of course they weren't. That decision alone is one thing,
But the other piece to this is that we've got
essentially a corner that was not in attendance physically at
the scene of the death. There's any number of ways
we could look at that. You begin to think about, well,
what leads you to the conclusion that this is okay
to release this body from the scene directly to a
(07:14):
funeral home without seeing the body in its context? And
I've talked about this in a previous episode about the
Dabell family and specifically about Tammy. You get one shot
at seeing her in the context of that environment in
which she in dwelt and which she passed away. Because
the body is going to give you certain information, but
the environment always gives you certain information as well. And
(07:36):
when you take it, take the body and the scene
out of context, you can go down any number of
and any number of routes with this, and you're never
going to come to a sufficient conclusion. It's certainly not
as satisfying as you would if you went physically to
the scene an observed Tammy's body in place, maybe even
(07:57):
have drawn toxicology. If you're in you can do this.
We do this externally, where we draw blood externally, we
draw urine externally, and at least have that. But that
that wasn't done, David, And of course that's water in
the bridge.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
I got to ask you this, though, a forty nine
year old woman dies and she's not under it, She's
not being treated by a doctor for any kind of condition.
You know, it's not like she had a weekly appointment
with a doctor that was managing her care. So it
just strains other than somebody saying it's either a religious
(08:31):
issue or something along those lines. We can't. We don't
need to do an autopsy. She just died, she was
already sick. We knew it. Who do you believe that now? Granted,
when Tammy dave Bell died, they didn't know. Police did
not know that Chad dave Bell was involved with Lori
Valo in any way, shape or form. They didn't know
at the time that Louri Valo had two children that
were missing. They didn't know that Lori Valo's husband died
(08:53):
under weird circumstances the previous summer in July. So all
of these things that we know now they did not
know in rest in Idaho at that time. But I'm
really curious, and you mentioned the coroner not being there.
We've got a forty nine year old woman dies in Rexburg, Idaho.
They bury her across state lines in her home in Utah. Right.
(09:13):
I guess my confusion here is how is it not
deemed a suspicious death? We got to find out more
when a forty nine year old, seeming a healthy woman dies,
and who actually makes that call?
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Joe. By law, it's a corner. Corner is going to
trump anything any wishes that the family have. Okay, just
let that be known. If the corner says that there
shall be an examination, there shall be an examination. By law.
Now they'll take the family's thoughts into consideration. But this
is precisely why corners are supposed to go to scenes.
(09:45):
This is precisely why bodies are supposed to be examined
at the scene, hopefully more thoroughly, because once that moment
has gone you know the old legal adage about you
can't unring the bell. Once that tone has gone forward,
you cannot recapture it, and it really handicapped this case
because you're searching for answers, you're trying to explain, as
(10:07):
you stated, this young woman, and she is a young woman,
she's forty nine years old. The picture of health. Apparently
you do not rely specifically on what the husband actually relates.
Because here, here's the thing. If she doesn't have an
attending physician, Okay, she doesn't have an attending physician, she
doesn't have a pre existing condition, she doesn't have some
(10:30):
kind of underlying disease. Who's going to sign the death certificate? Well,
the corner has to sign the death certificate. And if
the corner's going to sign the death certificate, what are
you going to list as a cause of death if
you don't know, or are you just gonna make it up,
or are you just gonna make a guess? Because in
Tammy Davelle's case, what was concluded at the scene that
(10:53):
turned out not to be true, that her death was
actually related to a cardiac event, there's a term that
(11:21):
you hear a lot in the military that's part of
our vernacular now. I think because of all the military
movies that are out there, particularly in recent history, and
its eyes on. I wonder what that means for most
of us. Eyes On is that you have a presence
in a location where you can visualize something. Some people
(11:42):
refer to this as visualization. I've actually heard this term
called actualization, which I've never really understood, but I do
know this. When it comes to the death of Tammy Davell,
and you've got this relatively young woman who use by
most estimates, the picture of health, it's important to have
(12:04):
eyes on, and I think that you need a corner
that's there that can observe the environment, observe the people
in her environment, and most importantly, can observe her. We
think about that.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Dave following along with criminal cases dealing with death. I
have learned so much listening to you, as have many
of us. Okay, because there are certain things we just
don't know. And I'm going to ask you this because
and I hope it's not a stupid question, but you
have in this particular case, everybody thought she was in
(12:36):
good health seemed to be in good health and she
dies in her sleep. Her husband describes her coughing, and
he describes her as being a little sick prior to death.
But she was under no treatment of any doctor and
she dies. Now you have the paramedics. They call nine one.
When paramedics come out and they declare her debt. I guess,
and I know it's different in every state. Who actually
(12:58):
makes that declaration. If you have somebody who dies at home,
is the corner called to the scene right away to
come and see the entire situation as it's laid out,
even if it doesn't look like anything criminal has taken place.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
First off, in a case like this, everything is up
for questioning. I encourage anybody when you're dealing with something
that's discomplicated, you have to have answers. They have to
be scientifically sound the responses that you receive, and with
any kind of scientific pursuit, inquiry into these events, particularly
(13:38):
as it applies to death, is key. An inquiry means
you're going to have to be present in that moment
and to observe you have to have demonstrative evidence the
one baseline, where in most cases, not every but in
most cases where a death is not necessarily reportable to
the corner. It's where you have an individual that is
(14:02):
in a terminal phase, where they've been diagnosed, and most
of the time that's going to throw them into the
category of hospice care. I think many of our listeners
are familiar with hospice and unfortunately, some are incredibly familiar
with it because they've had to endure a death of
a loved one. Many times those deaths are not reportable.
(14:24):
The only person that's actually contacted in a case like
that is going to be a hospice nurse. Well, I
think that you and I, Dave can agree that Tammy
day Belt didn't fit into the status.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
I compare her to at forty nine, and compare that
to my father in law who died at seventy three.
He was under hospice care for the weeks leading up
to his passing, and we all gathered around as he
got worse and said our goodbyes. And when he passed,
everybody was on HND. We knew it was coming. Tammy
Dabell went to bed the night before. She's forty nine
years old and she dies. And that's why I'm saying
(14:58):
this is not normal. I would expect somebody's going to
be called. But here's the quack, And this is what
I wanted to pitch Joe is. At the time Tammy
day Bell died, nobody in the law enforcement community was
aware that there was something going on between the Valo
children being missing, because at that time they weren't even
listed as missing. Nobody was looking for them at that time.
(15:20):
When Tammy died, they didn't tie together that Chad Dabell
might be in a relationship with somebody other than his wife.
Nobody knew that. They looked at this as a forty
nine year old woman died in her bed, her husband
by her side kind of thing. So in that moment,
even though it seems innocent, I have to challenge somebody
(15:41):
being able to walk away from a forty nine year old,
seemingly healthy woman and just say, oh, it's natural causes.
That's not natural at forty nine these days. Maybe back
when people died at fifty it would be, but not now.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Not now. We're talking about life expectancy now has kind
of gone past the marker of eighty. I think in
many circumstances, and I love what you said just a
second ago, o Dave about this. You don't know what's
going on. I'm from Many people know I'm from New Orleans,
and so I've written out multiple hurricanes. One of the
(16:13):
things about being in the middle of the hurricane, one
of the eeriest things is being in the eye when
the eye passes directly over in anybody that's never been
in that environment, if you were to be plopped down
in the eye of a hurricane on the ground, you
wouldn't know that you were in the middle of a storm,
a massive storm. It's all out on the periphery and
it's swirling, but you can't really see it, and that's
(16:35):
kind of that's maybe a poor illustration, but that's kind
of what we were faced with. I think that many
people that are associated with this case, they didn't know
that JJ and Tyley were gone.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Actually, I think that's a perfect illustration because think about it.
Imagine back in the day when you couldn't see like this. So, yeah,
there was a hurricane going all around that nobody knew about.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Nobody knew. It's very easy, chief amongst here speaking, to
sit in judgment of somebody, you know, looking back retrospectively.
But there's just certain things that you're going to look for.
You got a forty nine year old dead. I've got questions,
and by God, I want answers. So that's why it's
important that the corner did in fact show up. We've
(17:18):
got nine to one one, we've got a deputy responding,
we've got ems responding. You would think that you would
want ems for a forty nine year old. This is
not a terminally old person. You're thinking, there's a chance
that they're going to try to do everything. But when
they arrived, they noted that there were no signs of life.
And it's at that point, you know you talked about
(17:39):
the corner coming out. That's when that switch is flipped.
When they're looking there and they're trained, you know, to
examine a body. Their patients obviously are alive, they're going
to try to transport them in. They knew that all
hope was gone at this point in time. God called corner.
So the corner shows up, and it came out in
trial and testimony not only the corner showed up, but
also the deputy corner or deputy corner preceded the actual
(18:02):
arrival of the corner. So you had two medical legal
authorities that showed up at the scene, they observed this frothy, pink,
adeimitous cone that there was a lot of vague information
about it. First. You know, one of the kids, i think,
in one of the television interviews, had said, yeah, yeah,
we saw that this was present on our mother's face.
The children, i think had stated that they're the ones
(18:24):
that insisted in an autopsy not be performed. Look, the
person that makes that decision, first off, is the corner.
It's not the family. The family can protest, they can
say no, we don't want an autopsy, and they can
scream from the rooftops. But if the corner deems it
necessary that it serves a greater good for us to
have the answers, Yeah, I mean, the corner might listen
(18:48):
to the family and say, yeah, we'll go along, we'll
abide by your wishes. When you're a medical legal authority
and you're standing over the body of a woman that
has suddenly died, there's no indication that she's got a
heart history or some kind of cardiac event. Now it
appears that she's probably in congested failure because she's got
this pink, frothy cone coming out of her mouth, which
(19:10):
is something that we associated with a congested failure. You'll
see it with od's as well. You see it in drownings.
But here's the thing, you also see it with a
six year old death stave. That's the problem here because
you know, as we come to find out later, when
her body was eventually removed from the grave down in Utah,
they found things that would indicate that this was something
(19:33):
other than a natural death. So it's at that moment
time that the corner makes a critical determination. They decide
to rest solely on the information that's being provided to
them by a one Chad day Bell. He's telling the
corner that, yeh, she's had I think he termed it
as convulsions. I don't know what you mean by convulsions
(19:56):
when you say convulsions, because if you tell me that
as a death investigator, I'm going to say, well, I
need you, I need you to put a finer point
on that for me. You're saying, she has had convulsions, Okay,
give me the dates and time's. Where were you when
this was going on? Had she just ingested anything when
this happened? Is there a history of family having quote
unquote convulsions to any of the kids have convulsions. Is
(20:19):
this something that you've witnessed? And were there any other
witnesses to these convulsions? Hey, when she had these convulsions,
did she ever fall to the floor and bite her tongue?
Did she thrash all about and you know, get hurt
as a result of bumping into things. I want to
know more about these so called convulsions, because if you
got convulsions, that means that there's some kind of root
(20:40):
there from a medical perspective, a disease perspective, that's causing that.
And I would think that if she's having convulsions, and
I'm sitting there and I'm telling the corner this, and
I'm looking at my kids, well, how do I know
that there's not some kind of genetic predisposition. You've got
a forty nine year old wife. I'm staring at my
kids that are there in the room, and I'm thinking, well,
(21:02):
if this is a problem, these quote unquote convulsions, how
do I know that my kids aren't gonna have this?
Speaker 2 (21:08):
But you know, Joe, on top of that, the convulsions, Okay,
if my wife was suffering from something, as he indicates convulsions,
something more than an extended cough that was recognizable that
I would put a tag to it like that. We
would have doctors records because I would have taken her
to the doctor. This is not normal. This is beyond
I've got a nagging cough. I've got something here that
(21:30):
I'm labeling convulsions.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Doc.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
We got to figure this out. But the other part
of all this, Joe, is that the children are not
children at home. These are adult children now who they
basically get their information about their mother's health from their father,
Chad day Bell. So Chad day Bell is the person
telling the kids, telling the authorities on the scene. Everybody
gets their information, and whether it's said by a child
(21:54):
or not, all of the information is coming from Chad
day Bell about the health of his wife, who now
suddenly has been having convulsions.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
He's the proverbial rudder on the ship. Is it a
piece of wellspring, the font if you will, from what
the knowledge that comes forth relative to her? And here's
the thing, I'm curious as to how thorough the examination
of her body was at the scene. There's going to
be evidence here on her body that's going to be
revealed as a result of this exhumation. What did you
(22:26):
see in real time? If you're the corner and look,
I'm all fine and good. If you maybe you decided, Okay,
I'm going to lean not onto my own understanding here
and just go with what the husband says. I guess
at the end of the day, relative to Tammy at
the scene, I'd want to know how thorough was your
examination of her remains at the scene? Did you see anything?
(22:50):
Did you notice anything? What is it that made you
feel so comfortable that you felt like her body could
be released, transported to another state and buried. Never, and
(23:21):
I mean never, underestimate what a true professional in the
medical legal field can accomplish when given the tools, the time,
the facility, and their expertise to assess a human remain.
And boy was an assessment done by doctor Eric Christensen.
He's a medical examiner for the state of Utah. Dave,
(23:43):
we really had a big reveal, didn't we? In court?
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Yes, And I have one question before we go forward
with this. My question relates to she dies in her
home in Idaho on October nineteenth, and she has moved
across state lines and they exhume her on December eleventh.
Who does the autopsy. Would it be the coroner from Rexburg,
Idaho going to Utah to do the autopsy or Idaho.
(24:09):
Is that now out of the picture and it's all
being dealt with in Utah.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Yeah, you've got a body that is now buried in Utah.
You have to have a burial certificate. You know that
they're going to crack up in the ground create a
new grave and that person is going to be deposited
there in the state of Utah. So that has to
be worked through now the corner up in Idaho. They
can request or you know, certainly law enforcement could as
well request a exhumation. They can request it, that doesn't
(24:36):
mean that they can order it. And it's going to
come down to the state officials in Utah as to
whether or not they're going to grant that request. But somebody,
probably probably the state Attorney general up in Idaho, got
on the phone and had a conversation with people, said, look,
this is what we're staring at, and maybe the FEDS
as well, because Dave, as you well know, we've been
following this loath these many years. We've got dead bodies
(24:59):
everywhere different states, in several different states, and not to mention.
You've got a federal park that's involved in all this,
where you got two children or one of the children
where they were actually last seeing alive. So there's a
lot of players involved in this.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Well, thankfully, at least in this particular case. Doctor Eric
Christiansen is Utah's chief medical examiner, and according to everything
I'm seeing, Joe, they got oh boy, this, I don't
want to be cold, and I pray people that if
you're a family member, you will forgive me. They got
Tammy Davell's body out of the grave around six point
(25:34):
thirty in the morning, and they had her body back
in the ground by two thirty that afternoon. Is it
common to do it that fast? Joe?
Speaker 1 (25:41):
I was actually shocked. I'm glad you picked up on that.
But you know what that tells me, Dave. The fact
that they were able to get her reinterred in such
a short period of time. You know what that tells me, Dave.
It tells me that there was prep that took place.
They knew what they had to do, they went in
and they accomplished the task in short order. And that
(26:05):
means that you're standing by you have every technician known
demand that is saying, Okay, guys, this is when we're starting.
The physician, doctor Christensen, he actually was there overseeing the exhamation,
so he physically was standing there as her remains were
brought up out of the ground, traveled with them back
(26:25):
to the State Emy's office, and it's at that point
that this examination took place. And it's almost like, I'm
not trying to be morbid here, but it's almost like
they would have pregamed this. They would have sat down
and there would have been a game plan. You know,
with everybody involved. You're going to have representatives from all
of the interested parties, from law enforcement, perhaps they're going
(26:45):
to be there. You're going to have, like I said,
your technicians there. I would imagine that probably Idaho had
sent down their crime scene people to document everything photographically.
Not to mention doctor Christensen is going to have his
own photography. That is that's a bit different than crime
scene photography, where you're going to be looking at specific trauma.
And this actually comes into play in court because photographs.
(27:08):
One of the ways that's played out is that there
were certain photographs that the judge in Tammy Dabell's case
would not allow. They were not allowing these big broad photographs.
There were only a couple of those what we refer
to as macro photographs of the body. They were showing
micro photographs, And even one observer said they couldn't actually
(27:29):
appreciate the anatomical orientation of the visual because you don't
have a point of reference. Say, for instance, if you've
got some kind of injury and they've only got like
a close up image of that injury, you can't appreciate
where the apex of the shoulder is, or the elbow
or anything with the scale. It's that, yeah, exactly, Well
there might have been a scale, but there's no it's
(27:50):
so tight that all you see is is skin.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
So that's why they actually drew the pictures showing where
these were.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Yeah, exactly, the doctor would. And look when a doctor
draws that diagram, and people have seen these diagrams that
we generate at autopsy, they're not inflammatory. Would you agree
with that, Dave. I mean, they're not like a dissected body.
But you can yet, you can identify trauma on the
body to say I found it. I found an abiration here,
I found a contusion here, there's a gunshot on here.
(28:18):
You have this in a very non inflammatory presentation. That's
actually what happened, you know. And boy did Christensen have
a big reveal. I don't know, you know, because we've
waited for this for so long. He came to some
very interesting conclusions, didn't he He did.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
And the thing that we had been told all along,
course is that she died in her sleep. Forty nine
year old woman dies in her sleep. No need to
look into it any further, Wash your hands off, Hubby
gets married again. But now we come to this trial.
We've got doctor Eric Christiansen on the stand, Utah's chief
medical examiner. We've got pictures, we've got drawings, but we
(28:55):
still don't know how she died. We know they said
fix you, but what in the world do we find out?
Joseph Scott Morgan.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
What the doctor's conclusion was was that Tammy Day Bell's
death actually arose first off, and this is quite horrible.
There's evidence that she had been restrained, Dave. She's got contusions.
If people will put their hand just superior to their
left breast, Okay, there's a big focal area of hemorrhage there.
(29:26):
You've got a focal area of hemorrhage. On the left bicep,
so that area that I was just referring to superior
to the left breast, So you've got a contusion there.
You've got a contusion the left bicep on the upper side,
the upside, so if you're laying face down, then there's
a series of four contusions running down the right arm, Dave.
(29:47):
I mean they run down the length of the right
bicep almost up to the highest one is going to
be where the upper arm joins the shoulder, just almost
at the point of the armpit, and they run down
all the way to the crook of the right arm
or what we refer to as the anti cupital fossa,
which is where you bend your arm right there. Then
(30:11):
you flip Tammy's body over. Another line of contusions Dave,
that run down the posterior or the backside of her
right arm. There's actually four there, So you've got these
multiple contusions all over her body. And what he had
opined was that she was restrained, and these restraints appeared
(30:34):
to have occurred in the hours just prior to her
death or in the midst you know, those perimortem events
that we talked about, like in the throes of death,
and he was able to verify. You know, we talked
about the frothyodemitus cone that had arisen out of her
mouth that was witnessed that morning. Actually i've seen I
(30:56):
think by one of her kids. He was able to
demonstrate that there was edema in her lungs as well,
so that gives you an idea for him, at least
he said, this is consistent with an asphixial death. Now,
how did this actually happen? Because you don't have anything
of significance on the neck that would give you an
(31:17):
idea of like a choking for perhaps, or a ligature strangulation.
But if she is restrained, if she is being held down,
if she is being tied up, I can't really see
that happening. Given the nature of these bruises, because you've
got them on both aspects, You've got them on the
(31:38):
front and the back of the arm. It would seem
to me that perhaps just perhaps Tammy knew something was wrong,
something was happening, and maybe the perpetrator was on top
of her day and she was fighting, She was fighting
for her life in the middle of the night. Can
(31:59):
you imagine what waking up and you've got this big
weight upon you, and you know something is happening. You
begin to fight back, but the person perhaps has more
muscle than you, they're stronger than you, they weigh more
than you. And then while you initially have that feeling,
suddenly something maybe a hand or maybe even a pillow,
(32:22):
compromises your airway and begins to press down on you.
And you're fighting. You're in a dead sleep while this happens,
and you wake up to this. You're fighting, you're struggling,
and then all of a sudden, they can't breathe anymore,
and now you've passed away in the marital bed, which,
by virtue of what doctor Christensen said, Dave, this is
(32:43):
an indication that this is he ruled this case not
as a natural you know, which we were told in
the beginning, this is some kind of seizure, it's some
kind of heart event or something. No, no, no, He
said that her death is classified as a homicide and
that this is actually an asphyxial death.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
And you see bruising that has occurred prior to death,
or is it possible for a body to be bruised
after death? And I mean, I know this is like
asking a lot of questions at one time. But I'm
really curious because I know we've seen a discussion, or
rather a dialogue about the bruising on her body and
where it happened. How can they tell when, where and
(33:21):
how it took place when you got a dead body.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Dead bodies don't bruise. That's just something that doesn't happen.
That can be traumatized. You know, have cuts and scrapes
and all those sorts of things, but they look different
than they do in life. But here's the thing. This
is what this forensic pathologist in Utah did, and this
is absolutely brilliant. I've never talked about this on bodybags before,
but it's a great opportunity to discuss it. This forensic
(33:45):
pathologist actually did a layer what's called a layer dissection
day where he didn't just merely cut into the tissue, okay,
he painstaking leeon each one of these little contused areas
that they're seeing on Tammy Dave Bell's body. He did
a layer dissection where he went first down through the dermis,
(34:07):
which is that top layer of skin, got the epidermis.
In the dermis, he kind of lifts that back and
looks for the underside of the skin to see where
the bruising is there the contusion. Then he goes into
what's referred to as the SubQ fat subcutaneous fat, goes
in there, see did the bruising extend down through there?
(34:28):
And then he trims back even further. He did this
probably on each one of these insults. Then he goes
into the muscle, Dave. He goes into the muscle and
actually trims through it to see how deep this contusion went.
And you know what you can tell by that how
much direct pressure was applied, Because the deeper you go,
(34:49):
the more pressure is going to be applied, and it
gives you perhaps a sense of violence visv how much
pressure was applied, and perhaps just perhaps did Tammy fight back?
And that's what everybody really wants to know.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
You said she was restrained. Does that indicate there might
have been more than one person restraining her?
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Wow? Yeah, great question, Dave, great question. How are you
going to pull that off? I wonder how exactly can
that be proven? I don't know necessarily that it could be.
I think that what we begin to think here is
that you begin to look at those that are most
intimately involved, and if you're married, who are you most
(35:34):
intimate with? Well, that individual that you share a bed with.
That's quite something to consider for that moment time, particularly
given you remember what you said about Chad and marrying
Lorie Valo. Give me the time framing in how.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Long Tammy died? October nineteenth, Chad day Bell married Lori
Valo on the beach in Hawaii November fifth.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Holy smokes. And then we've got Tammy's body being exhumed
in early December. My, how fast things happen? Huh?
Speaker 2 (36:08):
With what we're seeing in court and the big reveal
of the bruises of restraining, I'm still trying to wrap
my head around how did she? How was she asphixiated?
Will they ever be able to determine?
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Yeah, I don't know that they necessarily would have been
able to specifically identify the mechanism. But in his final conclusion,
Christensen actually opined that her death could have come about
as a result of smothering or what's referred to as
neck or chest compression, which means that you have a
(36:40):
tremendous amount of weight pressing down upon the neck. You know,
chest can't rise and fall, and your airways compromised because
you've got pressing down on the neck you know where
the airway is, or externally you're compromising the airway by
blockage of the nasal passage in the mouth. Either way,
this examiner concluded that her death was brought about as
(37:03):
a result of her oxygen uptake being compromised, and it
was of course at the hand of another I'm Joseph
Scott Morgan and this is bodybacks
Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan, Rexburg, Idaho. It's one
of those places I've never actually been to Idaho. I
have been on the western bank of the Snake River
(00:32):
in Oregon and have looked over into Idaho, and it's beautiful, beautiful,
very appealing to the eye. And the environment is incredibly
varied there. You know, you got the rockies that run
through there, you got these you know, kind of high
desert plains and all these sorts of things. But never
in my imagination did first off, did I think that
I would talk about the state of Idaho as much
(00:54):
as I have, I guess over the past four years,
five years, however long it's spend. I want to focus
on Rexpert today and one of the citizens of Expert,
a female citizen. She has been documented in the news
now for load of these many years, perhaps one of
(01:15):
the biggest mysteries surrounding this bizarre, murderous environment that was
inhabited by Chad Daybell and Lorie Valor Dabeill. Today we're
going to discuss finally the findings of the autopsy of
Tammy Dabell. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is Body
(01:39):
Bags Dave mac been waiting for info. You know that
there's that part of me that wants to know, But
there's that old investigator within me that knows why I
should not know. You know what I'm saying, Because it's
not about how much stuff can be flooded out into
(02:03):
the media, how much data, how much information. It's about
a trial that is going to determine whether or not
you're going to have individuals held responsible for murder.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
There are shocking parts of this case every day, meaning
because we've dealt with so many other aspects of the
relationship between Lourie Valo and Chad day Bell, and when
you look at those two, if you put them at
the top of the pyramid chant, you know you're going
to find a lot of death and destruction of people
and families, all because of Chad day Bell and his
(02:41):
first real big follower, Lori Valo. We could deal with
that later on. Today we're talking about Tammy Dave Bell.
Tammy was forty nine years old. She and Chad day
Bell married in March of nineteen ninety. They had twenty
eight years together, five children together, just a wonderful little family.
(03:01):
I don't know if you're aware of this. But Tammy
day Bell was somebody that she was very respected. Co
workers said she was a computer whiz. Meanwhile, Chad day
Bell was really he didn't have much of a professional career. Really.
The only thing Chad had with the books that he
wrote that took Mormonism and really went down the wrong
rabbit hole and twisted and turned and whatever. But it
(03:25):
was Tammy day Bell that actually was the one person
that that family could count on.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
The rock in that family. And I'm glad you mentioned
this because she was a rock in the community as well.
You remember when you were in well elementary school, middle school,
junior high I think when we were kids that still
call it junior high and high school. There was some
media specialists, the librarian and everyone. It didn't matter what
grades you were in, You're going to pass through the
library at some point in tom that's that person. That's
(03:54):
what Tammy did for a living. So any group of
people that passed through the schools there in Rexburg got hod.
They knew Tammy. They knew her from church and whatnot
and everything else that she was engaged with. And these
these children that her and Chad had produced together, these
were adult children now and they were in her life
and children for a family. They're like little ships that
(04:15):
are set of saale left. You bring them to bring
them to adulthood. You know, they go forth and you
know they're carrying your name with them. Good behavior or
bad behavior, they're known, and certainly she was known as well.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
And it was a good known, you know, regardless of
what people thought of Chad, Tammy day Bell was looked
upon with a respect and a dignity that really and
truly did not fit her demise. To really make this short,
because I know we've covered so many things associated with
this story. Kind of catching up a little bit. Tammy
and Chad have been married for twenty eight years, they
(04:47):
had the five children. When it came down to October
of twenty nineteen, there was a lot happening with Chad
day Bell kind of being the puppet master. And that's
why we're dealing with at forty nine years old, a
seemingly healthy woman died in her sleep. Suppose that's what
we're told. This is the nuts and bolts. Okay, we
(05:09):
have Lori Vallo on Lori Valo day Bell on trial
right now for the murder of her own children, and
then an accessory with Tammy Day Bell's passing. Most of
us were totally shocked to find out two weeks after
Tammy Day Bell passes away, Chad day Bell marries Lori
Vallo on the beach in Hawaii. Two weeks. That's it,
(05:33):
twenty eight years.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
How do you do that?
Speaker 2 (05:35):
You couldn't wait twenty eight days, no matter of fact, Joe,
you know what. It came out in court that he
Chad introduced Lori Vallo as his future wife a week
after Tammy Day Bell was dead. Okay, at first there
was no autopsy. How does a forty nine year old
woman just die in her sleep? Chad let it be
(05:57):
known that she had been suffering to a number of
medical issues. Friends said she wasn't she was trending for
a marathon. So we have these two differences of opinion.
Chad and Tammy's children claim they were the reason there
was no autopsy done on their mother. I find that
hard to believe, but that's what they said on CBS News.
(06:19):
They said, no, it was not our dad. We were
the ones that didn't want an autopsy. I kind of
have a feeling that Chad told them we don't want
an autopsy.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
For those that aren't familiar in the medical legal environment,
the children do not make that decision. That decision is
actually made by the living spouse. That's how this works.
He is the one that would have made that final
determination as to whether or not her remains would have
been examined by a medical examiner a forensic pathologist, and
(06:52):
of course they weren't. That decision alone is one thing,
But the other piece to this is that we've got
essentially a corner that was not in attendance physically at
the scene of the death. There's any number of ways
we could look at that. You begin to think about, well,
what leads you to the conclusion that this is okay
to release this body from the scene directly to a
(07:14):
funeral home without seeing the body in its context? And
I've talked about this in a previous episode about the
Dabell family and specifically about Tammy. You get one shot
at seeing her in the context of that environment in
which she in dwelt and which she passed away. Because
the body is going to give you certain information, but
the environment always gives you certain information as well. And
(07:36):
when you take it, take the body and the scene
out of context, you can go down any number of
and any number of routes with this, and you're never
going to come to a sufficient conclusion. It's certainly not
as satisfying as you would if you went physically to
the scene an observed Tammy's body in place, maybe even
(07:57):
have drawn toxicology. If you're in you can do this.
We do this externally, where we draw blood externally, we
draw urine externally, and at least have that. But that
that wasn't done, David, And of course that's water in
the bridge.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
I got to ask you this, though, a forty nine
year old woman dies and she's not under it, She's
not being treated by a doctor for any kind of condition.
You know, it's not like she had a weekly appointment
with a doctor that was managing her care. So it
just strains other than somebody saying it's either a religious
(08:31):
issue or something along those lines. We can't. We don't
need to do an autopsy. She just died, she was
already sick. We knew it. Who do you believe that now? Granted,
when Tammy dave Bell died, they didn't know. Police did
not know that Chad dave Bell was involved with Lori
Valo in any way, shape or form. They didn't know
at the time that Louri Valo had two children that
were missing. They didn't know that Lori Valo's husband died
(08:53):
under weird circumstances the previous summer in July. So all
of these things that we know now they did not
know in rest in Idaho at that time. But I'm
really curious, and you mentioned the coroner not being there.
We've got a forty nine year old woman dies in Rexburg, Idaho.
They bury her across state lines in her home in Utah. Right.
(09:13):
I guess my confusion here is how is it not
deemed a suspicious death? We got to find out more
when a forty nine year old, seeming a healthy woman dies,
and who actually makes that call?
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Joe. By law, it's a corner. Corner is going to
trump anything any wishes that the family have. Okay, just
let that be known. If the corner says that there
shall be an examination, there shall be an examination. By law.
Now they'll take the family's thoughts into consideration. But this
is precisely why corners are supposed to go to scenes.
(09:45):
This is precisely why bodies are supposed to be examined
at the scene, hopefully more thoroughly, because once that moment
has gone you know the old legal adage about you
can't unring the bell. Once that tone has gone forward,
you cannot recapture it, and it really handicapped this case
because you're searching for answers, you're trying to explain, as
(10:07):
you stated, this young woman, and she is a young woman,
she's forty nine years old. The picture of health. Apparently
you do not rely specifically on what the husband actually relates.
Because here, here's the thing. If she doesn't have an
attending physician, Okay, she doesn't have an attending physician, she
doesn't have a pre existing condition, she doesn't have some
(10:30):
kind of underlying disease. Who's going to sign the death certificate? Well,
the corner has to sign the death certificate. And if
the corner's going to sign the death certificate, what are
you going to list as a cause of death if
you don't know, or are you just gonna make it up,
or are you just gonna make a guess? Because in
Tammy Davelle's case, what was concluded at the scene that
(10:53):
turned out not to be true, that her death was
actually related to a cardiac event, there's a term that
(11:21):
you hear a lot in the military that's part of
our vernacular now. I think because of all the military
movies that are out there, particularly in recent history, and
its eyes on. I wonder what that means for most
of us. Eyes On is that you have a presence
in a location where you can visualize something. Some people
(11:42):
refer to this as visualization. I've actually heard this term
called actualization, which I've never really understood, but I do
know this. When it comes to the death of Tammy Davell,
and you've got this relatively young woman who use by
most estimates, the picture of health, it's important to have
(12:04):
eyes on, and I think that you need a corner
that's there that can observe the environment, observe the people
in her environment, and most importantly, can observe her. We
think about that.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Dave following along with criminal cases dealing with death. I
have learned so much listening to you, as have many
of us. Okay, because there are certain things we just
don't know. And I'm going to ask you this because
and I hope it's not a stupid question, but you
have in this particular case, everybody thought she was in
(12:36):
good health seemed to be in good health and she
dies in her sleep. Her husband describes her coughing, and
he describes her as being a little sick prior to death.
But she was under no treatment of any doctor and
she dies. Now you have the paramedics. They call nine one.
When paramedics come out and they declare her debt. I guess,
and I know it's different in every state. Who actually
(12:58):
makes that declaration. If you have somebody who dies at home,
is the corner called to the scene right away to
come and see the entire situation as it's laid out,
even if it doesn't look like anything criminal has taken place.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
First off, in a case like this, everything is up
for questioning. I encourage anybody when you're dealing with something
that's discomplicated, you have to have answers. They have to
be scientifically sound the responses that you receive, and with
any kind of scientific pursuit, inquiry into these events, particularly
(13:38):
as it applies to death, is key. An inquiry means
you're going to have to be present in that moment
and to observe you have to have demonstrative evidence the
one baseline, where in most cases, not every but in
most cases where a death is not necessarily reportable to
the corner. It's where you have an individual that is
(14:02):
in a terminal phase, where they've been diagnosed, and most
of the time that's going to throw them into the
category of hospice care. I think many of our listeners
are familiar with hospice and unfortunately, some are incredibly familiar
with it because they've had to endure a death of
a loved one. Many times those deaths are not reportable.
(14:24):
The only person that's actually contacted in a case like
that is going to be a hospice nurse. Well, I
think that you and I, Dave can agree that Tammy
day Belt didn't fit into the status.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
I compare her to at forty nine, and compare that
to my father in law who died at seventy three.
He was under hospice care for the weeks leading up
to his passing, and we all gathered around as he
got worse and said our goodbyes. And when he passed,
everybody was on HND. We knew it was coming. Tammy
Dabell went to bed the night before. She's forty nine
years old and she dies. And that's why I'm saying
(14:58):
this is not normal. I would expect somebody's going to
be called. But here's the quack, And this is what
I wanted to pitch Joe is. At the time Tammy
day Bell died, nobody in the law enforcement community was
aware that there was something going on between the Valo
children being missing, because at that time they weren't even
listed as missing. Nobody was looking for them at that time.
(15:20):
When Tammy died, they didn't tie together that Chad Dabell
might be in a relationship with somebody other than his wife.
Nobody knew that. They looked at this as a forty
nine year old woman died in her bed, her husband
by her side kind of thing. So in that moment,
even though it seems innocent, I have to challenge somebody
(15:41):
being able to walk away from a forty nine year old,
seemingly healthy woman and just say, oh, it's natural causes.
That's not natural at forty nine these days. Maybe back
when people died at fifty it would be, but not now.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Not now. We're talking about life expectancy now has kind
of gone past the marker of eighty. I think in
many circumstances, and I love what you said just a
second ago, o Dave about this. You don't know what's
going on. I'm from Many people know I'm from New Orleans,
and so I've written out multiple hurricanes. One of the
(16:13):
things about being in the middle of the hurricane, one
of the eeriest things is being in the eye when
the eye passes directly over in anybody that's never been
in that environment, if you were to be plopped down
in the eye of a hurricane on the ground, you
wouldn't know that you were in the middle of a storm,
a massive storm. It's all out on the periphery and
it's swirling, but you can't really see it, and that's
(16:35):
kind of that's maybe a poor illustration, but that's kind
of what we were faced with. I think that many
people that are associated with this case, they didn't know
that JJ and Tyley were gone.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Actually, I think that's a perfect illustration because think about it.
Imagine back in the day when you couldn't see like this. So, yeah,
there was a hurricane going all around that nobody knew about.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Nobody knew. It's very easy, chief amongst here speaking, to
sit in judgment of somebody, you know, looking back retrospectively.
But there's just certain things that you're going to look for.
You got a forty nine year old dead. I've got questions,
and by God, I want answers. So that's why it's
important that the corner did in fact show up. We've
(17:18):
got nine to one one, we've got a deputy responding,
we've got ems responding. You would think that you would
want ems for a forty nine year old. This is
not a terminally old person. You're thinking, there's a chance
that they're going to try to do everything. But when
they arrived, they noted that there were no signs of life.
And it's at that point, you know you talked about
(17:39):
the corner coming out. That's when that switch is flipped.
When they're looking there and they're trained, you know, to
examine a body. Their patients obviously are alive, they're going
to try to transport them in. They knew that all
hope was gone at this point in time. God called corner.
So the corner shows up, and it came out in
trial and testimony not only the corner showed up, but
also the deputy corner or deputy corner preceded the actual
(18:02):
arrival of the corner. So you had two medical legal
authorities that showed up at the scene, they observed this frothy, pink,
adeimitous cone that there was a lot of vague information
about it. First. You know, one of the kids, i think,
in one of the television interviews, had said, yeah, yeah,
we saw that this was present on our mother's face.
The children, i think had stated that they're the ones
(18:24):
that insisted in an autopsy not be performed. Look, the
person that makes that decision, first off, is the corner.
It's not the family. The family can protest, they can
say no, we don't want an autopsy, and they can
scream from the rooftops. But if the corner deems it
necessary that it serves a greater good for us to
have the answers, Yeah, I mean, the corner might listen
(18:48):
to the family and say, yeah, we'll go along, we'll
abide by your wishes. When you're a medical legal authority
and you're standing over the body of a woman that
has suddenly died, there's no indication that she's got a
heart history or some kind of cardiac event. Now it
appears that she's probably in congested failure because she's got
this pink, frothy cone coming out of her mouth, which
(19:10):
is something that we associated with a congested failure. You'll
see it with od's as well. You see it in drownings.
But here's the thing, you also see it with a
six year old death stave. That's the problem here because
you know, as we come to find out later, when
her body was eventually removed from the grave down in Utah,
they found things that would indicate that this was something
(19:33):
other than a natural death. So it's at that moment
time that the corner makes a critical determination. They decide
to rest solely on the information that's being provided to
them by a one Chad day Bell. He's telling the
corner that, yeh, she's had I think he termed it
as convulsions. I don't know what you mean by convulsions
(19:56):
when you say convulsions, because if you tell me that
as a death investigator, I'm going to say, well, I
need you, I need you to put a finer point
on that for me. You're saying, she has had convulsions, Okay,
give me the dates and time's. Where were you when
this was going on? Had she just ingested anything when
this happened? Is there a history of family having quote
unquote convulsions to any of the kids have convulsions. Is
(20:19):
this something that you've witnessed? And were there any other
witnesses to these convulsions? Hey, when she had these convulsions,
did she ever fall to the floor and bite her tongue?
Did she thrash all about and you know, get hurt
as a result of bumping into things. I want to
know more about these so called convulsions, because if you
got convulsions, that means that there's some kind of root
(20:40):
there from a medical perspective, a disease perspective, that's causing that.
And I would think that if she's having convulsions, and
I'm sitting there and I'm telling the corner this, and
I'm looking at my kids, well, how do I know
that there's not some kind of genetic predisposition. You've got
a forty nine year old wife. I'm staring at my
kids that are there in the room, and I'm thinking, well,
(21:02):
if this is a problem, these quote unquote convulsions, how
do I know that my kids aren't gonna have this?
Speaker 2 (21:08):
But you know, Joe, on top of that, the convulsions, Okay,
if my wife was suffering from something, as he indicates convulsions,
something more than an extended cough that was recognizable that
I would put a tag to it like that. We
would have doctors records because I would have taken her
to the doctor. This is not normal. This is beyond
I've got a nagging cough. I've got something here that
(21:30):
I'm labeling convulsions.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Doc.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
We got to figure this out. But the other part
of all this, Joe, is that the children are not
children at home. These are adult children now who they
basically get their information about their mother's health from their father,
Chad day Bell. So Chad day Bell is the person
telling the kids, telling the authorities on the scene. Everybody
gets their information, and whether it's said by a child
(21:54):
or not, all of the information is coming from Chad
day Bell about the health of his wife, who now
suddenly has been having convulsions.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
He's the proverbial rudder on the ship. Is it a
piece of wellspring, the font if you will, from what
the knowledge that comes forth relative to her? And here's
the thing, I'm curious as to how thorough the examination
of her body was at the scene. There's going to
be evidence here on her body that's going to be
revealed as a result of this exhumation. What did you
(22:26):
see in real time? If you're the corner and look,
I'm all fine and good. If you maybe you decided, Okay,
I'm going to lean not onto my own understanding here
and just go with what the husband says. I guess
at the end of the day, relative to Tammy at
the scene, I'd want to know how thorough was your
examination of her remains at the scene? Did you see anything?
(22:50):
Did you notice anything? What is it that made you
feel so comfortable that you felt like her body could
be released, transported to another state and buried. Never, and
(23:21):
I mean never, underestimate what a true professional in the
medical legal field can accomplish when given the tools, the time,
the facility, and their expertise to assess a human remain.
And boy was an assessment done by doctor Eric Christensen.
He's a medical examiner for the state of Utah. Dave,
(23:43):
we really had a big reveal, didn't we? In court?
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Yes, And I have one question before we go forward
with this. My question relates to she dies in her
home in Idaho on October nineteenth, and she has moved
across state lines and they exhume her on December eleventh.
Who does the autopsy. Would it be the coroner from Rexburg,
Idaho going to Utah to do the autopsy or Idaho.
(24:09):
Is that now out of the picture and it's all
being dealt with in Utah.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Yeah, you've got a body that is now buried in Utah.
You have to have a burial certificate. You know that
they're going to crack up in the ground create a
new grave and that person is going to be deposited
there in the state of Utah. So that has to
be worked through now the corner up in Idaho. They
can request or you know, certainly law enforcement could as
well request a exhumation. They can request it, that doesn't
(24:36):
mean that they can order it. And it's going to
come down to the state officials in Utah as to
whether or not they're going to grant that request. But somebody,
probably probably the state Attorney general up in Idaho, got
on the phone and had a conversation with people, said, look,
this is what we're staring at, and maybe the FEDS
as well, because Dave, as you well know, we've been
following this loath these many years. We've got dead bodies
(24:59):
everywhere different states, in several different states, and not to mention.
You've got a federal park that's involved in all this,
where you got two children or one of the children
where they were actually last seeing alive. So there's a
lot of players involved in this.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Well, thankfully, at least in this particular case. Doctor Eric
Christiansen is Utah's chief medical examiner, and according to everything
I'm seeing, Joe, they got oh boy, this, I don't
want to be cold, and I pray people that if
you're a family member, you will forgive me. They got
Tammy Davell's body out of the grave around six point
(25:34):
thirty in the morning, and they had her body back
in the ground by two thirty that afternoon. Is it
common to do it that fast? Joe?
Speaker 1 (25:41):
I was actually shocked. I'm glad you picked up on that.
But you know what that tells me, Dave. The fact
that they were able to get her reinterred in such
a short period of time. You know what that tells me, Dave.
It tells me that there was prep that took place.
They knew what they had to do, they went in
and they accomplished the task in short order. And that
(26:05):
means that you're standing by you have every technician known
demand that is saying, Okay, guys, this is when we're starting.
The physician, doctor Christensen, he actually was there overseeing the exhamation,
so he physically was standing there as her remains were
brought up out of the ground, traveled with them back
(26:25):
to the State Emy's office, and it's at that point
that this examination took place. And it's almost like, I'm
not trying to be morbid here, but it's almost like
they would have pregamed this. They would have sat down
and there would have been a game plan. You know,
with everybody involved. You're going to have representatives from all
of the interested parties, from law enforcement, perhaps they're going
(26:45):
to be there. You're going to have, like I said,
your technicians there. I would imagine that probably Idaho had
sent down their crime scene people to document everything photographically.
Not to mention doctor Christensen is going to have his
own photography. That is that's a bit different than crime
scene photography, where you're going to be looking at specific trauma.
And this actually comes into play in court because photographs.
(27:08):
One of the ways that's played out is that there
were certain photographs that the judge in Tammy Dabell's case
would not allow. They were not allowing these big broad photographs.
There were only a couple of those what we refer
to as macro photographs of the body. They were showing
micro photographs, And even one observer said they couldn't actually
(27:29):
appreciate the anatomical orientation of the visual because you don't
have a point of reference. Say, for instance, if you've
got some kind of injury and they've only got like
a close up image of that injury, you can't appreciate
where the apex of the shoulder is, or the elbow
or anything with the scale. It's that, yeah, exactly, Well
there might have been a scale, but there's no it's
(27:50):
so tight that all you see is is skin.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
So that's why they actually drew the pictures showing where
these were.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Yeah, exactly, the doctor would. And look when a doctor
draws that diagram, and people have seen these diagrams that
we generate at autopsy, they're not inflammatory. Would you agree
with that, Dave. I mean, they're not like a dissected body.
But you can yet, you can identify trauma on the
body to say I found it. I found an abiration here,
I found a contusion here, there's a gunshot on here.
(28:18):
You have this in a very non inflammatory presentation. That's
actually what happened, you know. And boy did Christensen have
a big reveal. I don't know, you know, because we've
waited for this for so long. He came to some
very interesting conclusions, didn't he He did.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
And the thing that we had been told all along,
course is that she died in her sleep. Forty nine
year old woman dies in her sleep. No need to
look into it any further, Wash your hands off, Hubby
gets married again. But now we come to this trial.
We've got doctor Eric Christiansen on the stand, Utah's chief
medical examiner. We've got pictures, we've got drawings, but we
(28:55):
still don't know how she died. We know they said
fix you, but what in the world do we find out?
Joseph Scott Morgan.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
What the doctor's conclusion was was that Tammy Day Bell's
death actually arose first off, and this is quite horrible.
There's evidence that she had been restrained, Dave. She's got contusions.
If people will put their hand just superior to their
left breast, Okay, there's a big focal area of hemorrhage there.
(29:26):
You've got a focal area of hemorrhage. On the left bicep,
so that area that I was just referring to superior
to the left breast, So you've got a contusion there.
You've got a contusion the left bicep on the upper side,
the upside, so if you're laying face down, then there's
a series of four contusions running down the right arm, Dave.
(29:47):
I mean they run down the length of the right
bicep almost up to the highest one is going to
be where the upper arm joins the shoulder, just almost
at the point of the armpit, and they run down
all the way to the crook of the right arm
or what we refer to as the anti cupital fossa,
which is where you bend your arm right there. Then
(30:11):
you flip Tammy's body over. Another line of contusions Dave,
that run down the posterior or the backside of her
right arm. There's actually four there, So you've got these
multiple contusions all over her body. And what he had
opined was that she was restrained, and these restraints appeared
(30:34):
to have occurred in the hours just prior to her
death or in the midst you know, those perimortem events
that we talked about, like in the throes of death,
and he was able to verify. You know, we talked
about the frothyodemitus cone that had arisen out of her
mouth that was witnessed that morning. Actually i've seen I
(30:56):
think by one of her kids. He was able to
demonstrate that there was edema in her lungs as well,
so that gives you an idea for him, at least
he said, this is consistent with an asphixial death. Now,
how did this actually happen? Because you don't have anything
of significance on the neck that would give you an
(31:17):
idea of like a choking for perhaps, or a ligature strangulation.
But if she is restrained, if she is being held down,
if she is being tied up, I can't really see
that happening. Given the nature of these bruises, because you've
got them on both aspects, You've got them on the
(31:38):
front and the back of the arm. It would seem
to me that perhaps just perhaps Tammy knew something was wrong,
something was happening, and maybe the perpetrator was on top
of her day and she was fighting, She was fighting
for her life in the middle of the night. Can
(31:59):
you imagine what waking up and you've got this big
weight upon you, and you know something is happening. You
begin to fight back, but the person perhaps has more
muscle than you, they're stronger than you, they weigh more
than you. And then while you initially have that feeling,
suddenly something maybe a hand or maybe even a pillow,
(32:22):
compromises your airway and begins to press down on you.
And you're fighting. You're in a dead sleep while this happens,
and you wake up to this. You're fighting, you're struggling,
and then all of a sudden, they can't breathe anymore,
and now you've passed away in the marital bed, which,
by virtue of what doctor Christensen said, Dave, this is
(32:43):
an indication that this is he ruled this case not
as a natural you know, which we were told in
the beginning, this is some kind of seizure, it's some
kind of heart event or something. No, no, no, He
said that her death is classified as a homicide and
that this is actually an asphyxial death.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
And you see bruising that has occurred prior to death,
or is it possible for a body to be bruised
after death? And I mean, I know this is like
asking a lot of questions at one time. But I'm
really curious because I know we've seen a discussion, or
rather a dialogue about the bruising on her body and
where it happened. How can they tell when, where and
(33:21):
how it took place when you got a dead body.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Dead bodies don't bruise. That's just something that doesn't happen.
That can be traumatized. You know, have cuts and scrapes
and all those sorts of things, but they look different
than they do in life. But here's the thing. This
is what this forensic pathologist in Utah did, and this
is absolutely brilliant. I've never talked about this on bodybags before,
but it's a great opportunity to discuss it. This forensic
(33:45):
pathologist actually did a layer what's called a layer dissection
day where he didn't just merely cut into the tissue, okay,
he painstaking leeon each one of these little contused areas
that they're seeing on Tammy Dave Bell's body. He did
a layer dissection where he went first down through the dermis,
(34:07):
which is that top layer of skin, got the epidermis.
In the dermis, he kind of lifts that back and
looks for the underside of the skin to see where
the bruising is there the contusion. Then he goes into
what's referred to as the SubQ fat subcutaneous fat, goes
in there, see did the bruising extend down through there?
(34:28):
And then he trims back even further. He did this
probably on each one of these insults. Then he goes
into the muscle, Dave. He goes into the muscle and
actually trims through it to see how deep this contusion went.
And you know what you can tell by that how
much direct pressure was applied, Because the deeper you go,
(34:49):
the more pressure is going to be applied, and it
gives you perhaps a sense of violence visv how much
pressure was applied, and perhaps just perhaps did Tammy fight back?
And that's what everybody really wants to know.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
You said she was restrained. Does that indicate there might
have been more than one person restraining her?
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Wow? Yeah, great question, Dave, great question. How are you
going to pull that off? I wonder how exactly can
that be proven? I don't know necessarily that it could be.
I think that what we begin to think here is
that you begin to look at those that are most
intimately involved, and if you're married, who are you most
(35:34):
intimate with? Well, that individual that you share a bed with.
That's quite something to consider for that moment time, particularly
given you remember what you said about Chad and marrying
Lorie Valo. Give me the time framing in how.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Long Tammy died? October nineteenth, Chad day Bell married Lori
Valo on the beach in Hawaii November fifth.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Holy smokes. And then we've got Tammy's body being exhumed
in early December. My, how fast things happen? Huh?
Speaker 2 (36:08):
With what we're seeing in court and the big reveal
of the bruises of restraining, I'm still trying to wrap
my head around how did she? How was she asphixiated?
Will they ever be able to determine?
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Yeah, I don't know that they necessarily would have been
able to specifically identify the mechanism. But in his final conclusion,
Christensen actually opined that her death could have come about
as a result of smothering or what's referred to as
neck or chest compression, which means that you have a
(36:40):
tremendous amount of weight pressing down upon the neck. You know,
chest can't rise and fall, and your airways compromised because
you've got pressing down on the neck you know where
the airway is, or externally you're compromising the airway by
blockage of the nasal passage in the mouth. Either way,
this examiner concluded that her death was brought about as
(37:03):
a result of her oxygen uptake being compromised, and it
was of course at the hand of another I'm Joseph
Scott Morgan and this is bodybacks
Host
Nancy Grace
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