April 13, 2022 • 40 mins
Lori Vallow Daybell will stand trial for the deaths of her two children. On Monday, an Idaho court found Lori Vallow Daybell fit to stand trial. Seventh District Judge Steven Boyce ordered Daybell’s release from the Department of Health and Welfare after reviewing three evaluation reports. Daybell has been undergoing treatment since last summer, but she will now be be transferred from the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare to Fremont County police’s custody. Daybell arraignment is April 19. The two children, JJ and Tylee, vanished in September, 2019. Their remains were found on Chad Daybell’s property in June 2020.
Joining Nancy Grace Today:
- James Shelnutt - 27 years Atlanta Metro Area Major Case Detective, Former S.W.A.T. officer, Attorney, The Shelnutt Law Firm, P.C., www.ShelnuttLawFirm.com, Twitter: @ShelnuttLawFirm
- Caryn Stark - NYC Psychologist, www.carynstark.com, Twitter: @carynpsych, Facebook: "Caryn Stark"
- Joseph Scott Morgan - Professor of Forensics: Jacksonville State University, Author, "Blood Beneath My Feet", Host: "Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan"
- Sheryl McCollum - Forensic Expert & Cold Case Investigative Research Institute Founder, ColdCaseCrimes.org, Twitter: @ColdCaseTips
- Nate Eaton - News Director, EastIdahoNews.com Twitter: @NateNewsNow, Instagram: @n.eaton
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace in the last hours a
major decision in the cult Mom Laurie Valo case. As
you will recall, Valo led police on a wild goose
chase trying to find her children JJ entirely was much
(00:29):
much later that their remains, dismembered, burned, buried in a
pet cemetery were found. I Meanancy Grace, this is Crime Stories.
Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation
and Serious M one eleven. Guess what cult Mom is
going to trial? Take a listen to this. Finally we
(00:52):
will see Laurie Valobar reigned on charges of first degree
murder in conspiracy to commit murder. Her court appearance is
set for next two day in the Fremont County Courthouse
of Idaho, the first time she'll be seen in court
since last May when she was indicted by a grand jury.
So here's what's happening now. According to the court order,
Valo's competency is now restored, she's fit to proceed, and
(01:14):
she will no longer be in the custody of the
Department of Health and Welfare. Transferred from an Idaho State
hospital to the Fremont County Sheriff ahead of her raiment.
Since last June, Valo has been deemed incompetent for more
than two hundred and seventy days. She's been treated until
she could be restored. Prosecutors in Idaho say she and
her husband and codefend and Chad daybel used their religious
(01:34):
beliefs to justify the killings of her two kids, seven
year old JJ Valo and sixteen year old Tyleye Ryan,
along with Daybelle's first wife, Tammy Daybell. Tammy sudden death
happened in the October in October of twenty nineteen in
the Daybell home. The children's remains were found on Daybell's
property in June of twenty twenty, about nine months after
their disappearance. You're here in your friend, said Fox Tan,
(01:55):
And you heard right. It's been months and months and
months on hold, waiting for justice in the murders of
this little boy JJ and big sister Tiley at the
hands according to police of Mommy Coltman Laurie Vallo, and
her brand new husband, I think husband number four, Chad
(02:17):
day Bell, the doomsday prophet who predicted the end of
the world with me and I'll star panel to make
sense of what we know. James shell Nutt twenty seven
years metro major case detective, former SWAT, now lawyer with
a shell Nutt Law firm. Karen start Were now psychologists
joining us out of New York at Karen Stark dot com.
(02:40):
Karen with a see Joseph Scott Morgan, Professor Forensics, Jacksonville
State University and author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon.
He's the star of a brand new hit series, Bodybags
with Joseph Scott Morgan on iHeart Cheryl McCollum, Founder and
Director of the Cold Case Research Institute at Coaldcase Crimes
dot org. But first to a very special guest I
(03:03):
now called a friend and colleague who has been on
this case from the beginning. One of my favorite things
he ever did was when cult mom Laurie Valoe, while
her children were missing, orders a wedding dress, a beach
(03:24):
b Eah beach wedding dress online on her husband's Amazon
account after he's dead, wait, wait, before he's dead, and
takes off to Hawaii and has a beach wedding. So
(03:47):
either she's clairvoyant or she's a killer. All right, While
she said Hawaii, she's hounded by the press, and you
see this hand appear over and over chasing Lorie Value, say,
where are your children? Aren't you worried about your children?
Are they here? Do you have them hidden away somewhere?
(04:07):
That was Nate Eden. Nate Eaton followed this woman all
the way to Hawaii. Nate Eaton joining me right now,
news director East Idaho News dot Com. Nate Eden. This
has been a long row to hoe, has it not. Yeah,
we're looking at over two years now now, two years, yes,
(04:30):
two years. It's actually nearly two and a half since
that JJ Enthighly were killed. They weren't just killed. They
weren't killed because you know, there's five ways to die,
all right, according to medical examiners. I mean, there's a
million ways you can be killed. But there's suicide, there
(04:50):
is accident, there's natural death, there's undetermined, and there's homicide.
All right. They were murdered. They didn't just fall into
a shallow grave on their new step dad's property in
the pet cemetery. They were murdered. Go ahead. The condition
(05:13):
of their bodies, you might recall Nancy two grafted to
even describe, but no, no, it's not, No, it's not
because a jury's going to hear it, and our listeners
are going to hear it. So tell them how these
two children were found. Hylee was found in pieces. She
had been dismembered, she had been burned. They were sifting
(05:33):
through dirt looking for bone fragments. That's how horrific her
body condition was. Everybody, remember this was a teen girl,
just sixteen years old, Tyleie Ryan, And you heard Nate
ate and say dismembered, burned, digging sifting through dirt, trying
(05:57):
to find bone fragments, piece of tiley, all right, go ahead,
And they were actually able to find a piece of
her tissue, which is how they were able to identify her.
And JJ, the cute little boy was found wrapped in
tight plastic and duct tape. That was duct tape across
(06:18):
his head, across his wrists, wearing his red pajama pans
that he had gone to bed in the night before.
So there was obviously, or it appeared, some thoughts that
went into this as to what happened. And you mentioned,
Nancy that it's been a long road two hundred and
seventy days since Laurie was declared incompetent and that decision
(06:39):
her attorney filed that motion at the time of her incompetency,
two days after the indictment came down. So she sat
in jail for over a year on other charges that
weren't as serious. But then once those murder charges came down,
suddenly her attorney filed emotion saying, wait, my client is
no longer competent. She was sent away to a state hospital.
(07:01):
That's what we call a hail, Mary, explain it shall not.
Let's called a hill Mary, because you know that your
blind is guilty, You know that your client is the
subject of a national media trial, and you know your
client's going to prison, and you just throw anything up
the skill of stick or worse, prison or worse. Now,
let me understand, there are seeking the death penalty on
(07:24):
the new husband, Chad day Bill, the stepfather. Why not
ult mom Laurie Valley. Well, they haven't said if they
are are not. What has to happen is when she
is arranged next week. At that moment she is arraigned,
they have sixty days in Idaho to declare whether they're
going to pursue it on her or not. So because
Chad was arragned last year, they've already declared that. The
(07:45):
interesting thing to note is that attorney I mentioned who
had Laurie, who declared the incompetency. He's off the case.
Oh what happened to him? The judge disqualified him because
he originally represented both Chad and Laurie, and you can't
represent two people in a conspiracy case. Laurie's new attorney
is a public defender who has done multiple death penalty cases,
high profile case. Hold on just a moment, I want
(08:07):
to talk about what you just said to James Shellnutt,
former law enforcement twenty two years on the force. You
can't just pass the bar and walk in, waltz in
and tried death penalty case. You have to have years
of experience under your belt. Typically you've had to sit
(08:28):
second chair with a primary trying a death penalty case.
I mean, when I had my first death penalty case,
it was the murders of two little babies that were
burned alive because of a gang argument, not between the
male members, between the female members of the gang over
(08:50):
some clothes. So they threw a Molotov cocktail into an
apartment and screamed out, let's fry them babies. Okay, that said,
so you can't at no offense to the lawyer, but
if he does not have death penalty experience, he can't
(09:12):
just come in and try this case. No God gree
with you. And the tip off also in addition to that,
is that you're representing two defendants in a criminal case.
As long was their interest stayed the exact same, that's fine.
But at some points throughout the case, if their interest
to urge their stories complete, you think there's gonna be
a favor pointing contest, they're going to throw you off
(09:33):
both cases, which is exactly what happened here. For those
of you that need to have your recollections refreshed. And
oh my goodness, Cheryl McCollum, you've been in the court
with me many times when I said you're on or
may I approach the witness with this document in order
to refresh their recollection. In other words, they were not
(09:53):
testifying to what they told me they were going to testify,
and apparently I had to give them some document to
jog their amory. I want you to take a listen
to our cut thirteen, he said. Katie v. B. Boise
September twenty second, the last time JJ Vaalo was seen
police interviewed Melanie Gibb and her boyfriend David Warwick, who
(10:15):
were visiting Lorie that weekend. They told police Lourie said
JJ had turned into a zombie. The next morning, September
twenty third, between eight and nine am, Warwick didn't see
JJ and asked where he was. Burie stated he was
acting out, so quote Alex had come and taken JJ.
GPS data once again puts Alex on Chad's property that
(10:36):
day from nine fifty five am until ten to twelve am,
paying near the pond. All this evidence started coming to
light around the first part of June twenty twenty. Just
days later, June ninth, police searched Chad's property. They focused
on sites corresponding to the GPS from Alex's phone and
the strange text to Tammy. JJ and Tigley's bodies were
(10:57):
found in those areas near the pond and fire crime
stories with Nancy Grace think back just a moment, Nate
(11:17):
Eaton joining us from East Idaho News dot Com. Nate
called Mom Laurie Valo would tell anybody that would listen listen,
her children had turned into quote zombies and that has
a peculiar meaning. For her, that means that it's her
duty to kill them because she's one of the chosen.
(11:42):
I believe it was one hundred and fourteen or one
hundred forty four thousand people that would go to heaven,
and it was her judy to kill all the possessed
spirits on earth. Yea. She believed she and Chad believed
they were part of the hundred forty four thousand who
would usher in Jesus Christ at his second coming, and
that if you became inhibited by a zombie. They had
(12:05):
the scale a light and a dark scale, and they
would rate people according to the investigators. So if you
were a really righteous, good person, you might have a
score of light nine or something. If you were dark,
you would have a dark score of You would have
a dark score as well. But then beneath this chart
was the zombie level. And they believe they told their
(12:27):
friends the only way that you could get rid of
a zombie out of someone is to either prey it
out of them, and if that did not work, if
you were unable to cast the zombie out of them,
the person needed to be destroyed or killed, and they
did that thing. Teaching Court documents show if That's what
happened with Marie's fourth husband, Charles Valot. He became possessed
by this zombie named ned Schneider, and because of that,
(12:51):
he ultimately was shot and killed. And then Chad's first wife, Tammy,
she also had this possessed zombie and her body. And
then of course tragically JJ, entirely JJ became possessed, and
they were open about talking about this according to their friends.
You know, one of her friends arrived here in Idaho
and Laurie fought out, said, JJ's a zombie. He's turned
(13:13):
into a zombie. He's climbing all over the cabinets. He
knocked down a picture of Jesus that was on the fridge.
So they were open about these beliefs with their inner circle,
and tragically it led to these deaths. Karen, Sorry, you're
the psychologist. Don't you think it's more than a coincidence
that everyone that's quote possessed by a demon and it's
a zombie. Are people that are standing in the way
(13:37):
Chad day Bail having sex with Laurie Valo, his wife,
her children, her husband, anybody that irritated them or got
on their nerves. Suddenly they were possessed and had to die. Well,
that makes me, as a psychologist nanti question what this
is all about, because it doesn't make sense if she
(13:59):
will mentally and so that people were becoming zandies, if
she was schizophrenic and last dating, whatever was going on,
it wouldn't be that clear that it was only happening
to the people that stood in the way of them
being together. Now she is not crazy, and that is
(14:19):
what the judge has just ruled. Take a listen to
you our cut eighty our friends at East Idaho Knees.
This morning, Judge Stephen Boyce ruled that Laurie Valodae Bell
is now competent for trial, meaning her the stay in
her case, the pause in her case, which has been
in effect since last summer June, will no longer be
(14:42):
in effect, and she will be released from the Department
of Health and Welfare custody. She has been in Northern
Idaho at a facility for the past well I would
say in nearly a year, at least eight nine months,
and she will now be brought back to Fremont County
and she will be arraigned. She will have her initial
quart appearance next Tuesday at one o'clock in Fremont County
(15:04):
on murder charges for the depths of her children, JJ
and Tilely, along with Chad day Bell's wife, Tammy Cheryl McCollum.
Of course, her religious theory sound Street term crazy to us,
but she is anything but crazy. Remember when the cops
were swarming Chad day Bell's farm and they finally went
(15:28):
to his pet cemetery. He got on the phone with Tammy,
He got, excuse me, that's the dead wife. He got
on the phone with Coltman Laurie Vallo, and she said,
have they found anything? I believe were her words. She knew,
darn well what was going on? That one question to me?
Have they found anything? She knew there was something to find.
(15:50):
No quick, My husband called me, and when the cops
are just shown up, and I'll say, okay, finally let
him in. What's up? Give them a bottle of water
for beats like, I would never think to say, did
they find anything? Right, because there's nothing to find that
I know of. Well, I think that's a really important
distinction for your listeners to understand. If we were just
(16:13):
all at a dinner party saying, hey, do you think
this woman is crazy? Honey, she's crazy. He's a rat
in a coffee can. However, is she legally insane? Absolutely not.
She wants to brag about, oh, zombies and we're gonna
take care of this problem. But she doesn't brag that
she stopped that zombie, that she destroyed that zombie. She
won't do that. She'll just tell you, oh, zombies are
(16:35):
out there and we've got to do something about it.
The other issue that people need to remember, JJ was
duct taped, his hands, his feet, and his mouth. Why
would you cover the mouth of a dead person. I
believe that baby was alive from that happened to him.
(16:55):
Tyley when she was buried, remember, Chad said a text
message to his wife talking about, Hey, I shot and
killed a raccoon in the pet cemetery. I buried it
in case she saw the ground had been disturbed for
a you know grave. They covered this up, they've fled
and there's no way that she's only crazy when it
(17:19):
comes to covering this crime, and every other time she's
you know, perfectly, Okay, Yeah, you can't have a selective insanity.
And let me ask you this, Nate eaton the fact
that she has been held all this time and the
custody of Health and Human Services, Health and Welfare. Everybody
knows that when you are in the mental ward or
(17:41):
the sick bay, you get special treatment. She has had
a pretty cushy existence for all this time while she
was being evaluated. Well, you could say that with this
particular facility, they encourage the residents that are there to
dress normal and normal street clothes, so she was not
in a jail outfit. She was able to wear what
(18:03):
she wanted. She was able to do her hair, she
was able to do her makeup, she was able to
eat decent food. She did meet with psychologists. We don't
know the content of what happened with those counselors, but
we do know they filed reports about two weeks ago
three different doctors with the Department of Health and Welfare,
and those reports went to the judge. So whatever they wrote,
and those reports obviously showed the judge that something has
(18:25):
changed to get her to this level of competency. Whether
it was medication, whether it was therapy, we don't know.
It will be interesting to see how she appears when
she shows up for her arrangement, because we have not
seen a person you know, you're just killing me, Nate
eight and death, death by a thousand words. I'll tell
you how he knows she's competent. She's sitting there and
(18:48):
the mid ward braiding her hair and making homemade makeup
to wear, the court yacking, having good meals, had being
therapy time, having recreation time, acting perfectly normal. That's why
I would totally totally go to the wardens or the
(19:14):
trustees where she is and ask about her behavior. I
guarantee you she's acting perfectly normal where she is. Nate Eton,
you could be right, Anthon, you could be right. I
would imagine that is the case. And we'll see how
she acts when she comes in. Will she be wearing
(19:34):
that pink lipstick when she walks into the courtroom. Oh,
you're just really rubbing it, an arn't you? Okay, I
got another point. I got another point for you. Take
a listen to our cut twenty one. Now you tell
me she's crazy after this, go ahead. Police in Rexburg, Idaho,
pleaded with the public for help. Two children are missing
(19:55):
and haven't been seen since September. It's now just before Christmas.
That's four months. Joshua jj Valo is seven years old
and described as special needs. His sister, sixteen year old
Tylie Ryan, is devoted to the autistic little boy. The
last known video of JJ came from a ring doorbell camera.
(20:16):
The FBI and the National Center for Missing and Exploited
Children take part in the search. However, Mom Laurie Valo doesn't.
Police say Valo's not helping authorities to find the children
at all. In fact, Valo didn't report the children missing.
I mean, Jess got Morgan, you're the forensics expert, but
I don't need forensics to show me that. In that case,
(20:39):
she already knew the children were dead. They were dead
according to forensics. As she was doing everything she could
to send police on a wild goose chase. She said
they were with their relatives. Cops go to the relatives place,
they're not there. When they go back to confront her
with that knowledge, she has moved out of the home,
(21:00):
left and leaves for Hawaii, refusing to answer any questions.
She did everything she could to evade police to keep
them from the knowledge the whereabouts of her children. That
is not insanity, No, it's not. It goes to purpose
and with her actions, and you can see it in
(21:21):
that initial moment in time when they begin to look
for these kids, she's trying to put as much distance
between herself and those bodies because they are bodies. At
that point in time, she knew that they were bodies.
She knew that those children were buried on that property.
And still and there's a continuation with this illness that
she allegedly has now because let me tell you this,
(21:44):
when this case finally makes it too court and they
begin to see those images of those children after they
have been disinterred, it will send such a shock and
a chill up the bond of the court and the
members of that jury that she knows what's coming down
(22:04):
the tracks at her. You're going to see a dismemberment
of a young girl who has been burned. Her body
has essentially been desecrated. And then you take JJ's body
that's buried on the edge of this dry pond over there,
and he has been wrapped multiple times for whatever purpose
mac had mentioned, putting tape over the mouth. And I
(22:27):
think that there's a lot that can be read into that.
I think that, in my opinion at least, that with
JJ's body, there was there was some kind of reverence
or some kind of weird connection they had to him
compared to Tyley. They attempted to literally destroy her in
death Nancy, And there's some kind of dichotomy there. I
(22:49):
don't know what it is. I'm not a psychologist, but
it just screams to me that these two children were
treated different and there was a lot of anger directed
at Tyle. You know what's interesting when the claim insanity
is thrown around. Let's go back to the indictment. Isn't
it true? Nate eating Nate joining us from East Idaho
News dot Com that cult mom Laurie Valo was also
(23:14):
indicted on a grand theft charge as it relates to
social Security benefits she was getting for the care of
miners after they're murdered, they're missing, Is she still getting
social Security benefits for them? That's correct. You might recall
when I saw her in Hawaii, she had a plastic
bag full of money and bank cards, and we later
(23:37):
learned that those bank cards were not hers, they were Tyley's.
They did not belong to her. So and that was
several months after those children had been killed, so she
had faced with that charge. She apparently continued to get
those benefits long after her children were murdered. So she's
so crazy that she knows how to cash in on
(23:58):
our children's benefits. That's because tile h JJ I think,
would you say JJ was autistic? Was he under the suspectrum?
Was the ADHD? He was on the spectrum, and he
was on medication that really helped, really helped deal with
his his autism, doing really well. And that was another
(24:21):
thing that the investigators sound inside their Talent Town home
is that prescription had had not been filled, so they
were not giving him the medication. And then that that
was so disturbing to the ground to keep cashing those checks.
Cheryl McCollum. When the babies are the children are mutilated, dismembered,
(24:42):
her medically sealed and buried in a pet cemetery with
the dogs and the cats and the the gerbils, she
kept taking the checks. And another thing, what about this, Cheryl,
He Chad day bail. It's charged with this ssurance fraud
for getting insurance on the wife he murdered. Well, let's
(25:05):
talk about why he might have done that. If you remember,
Laurie was angered because Charles, her husband, switched his life
insurance policy to his sister, Kay. Kay gets a million
dollars when he is murdered and she says, I got
nothing for me to raise JJ. Well, that goes straight
(25:27):
the motive. You know you're right, and let's hear from
the horse's mouth. Take a listen to our cut four.
The Madison County Prosecutor Rob Wood. Laurie Daville was also
indicted on the charge of grand theft related to social
Security survivor benefits allocated for the care of miners Tyleie
Ryan and JJ Vallow that were appropriated after the children
(25:48):
were missing and ultimately found deceased. Chad Daville was also
indicted on two counts of insurance fraud related to life
insurance policies he had on Tammy Daville for which he
was the unofficiary and received funds after her death. What
about it, Karen start Oh, I'm thinking about the fact
that people are saying that she believed that God spoke
(26:11):
to her and actually told her that she should kill
her children. And I think about a case like Andrea
Yay where she actually felt that she should kill her children,
that she was a bad mother and turned herself in,
actually called and said come get my children. I killed
(26:32):
my children and here's Laurie val saying God spoke to her,
and yet she knows the difference between right and wrong.
She knows that she should keep the Social Security check.
She knows that she's sending them on a wild goose chase.
That's not somebody who is insane and believes that in
(26:54):
her religious views, her children are possessed and their zombies.
I got a piggyback on that dread. If you watch
what she's doing, she's very careful to let Alex do
the dirty word, let Chad do the dirty word. She
didn't buy her own hand kill them. She also then
marries Chad so he can't testify against her. Then her brother, conveniently,
(27:18):
of course, dies of natural causes too. She thinks there's
nobody that's going to be able to tie her to murder.
That's what she believes incorrectly. Of course, Crime stories with
(27:40):
Nancy Grace Nate Eaton, let me understand right now, the
two of them are still co joined their co defendants
and are set to be tried together. That's right. The
prosecution wants them tried together. He says that the witnesses
are going to be the same, the evidence is going
(28:02):
to be the same. It will save a lot of
money to do it together. There's no risk that there
could be any sort of you know, jury influence by
one juror potentially seeing the other trial. And Chad Davil's
attorney has objected to that. There was a big hearing
held just recently where he said, I want these trials,
these trials severed. The judge responded and said, no, they're
(28:25):
going to be held together. That was while Laurie was
still incompetent, so things could potentially change. Right now, we
know we have a death penalty case with Chad. The
prosecution has sixty days to say if Laurie's going to
go for the death penalty if everything goes as scheduled.
Now they want ten weeks for the trial starting in
January of twenty twenty three. What I don't understand, and
(28:47):
shell nut I want to hear what you have to say,
joining me, James shell Nutt former Metro major case detective
now lawyer. Why would they say the DP on Chad
day Bell and not Lorie Vale I mean she was
the mother. He had no blood relation to these children
at all. He just wanted Lorie Valle. And just so
(29:10):
you know, what a pickup line. He would tell women
that he was married to them in a previous life,
so they have already had sex. Why not go at
it again. I mean, if you ever heard a pickup
line like that, he's going to get convicted on that alone.
But she is the mother. Yeah, this is crazy. So
(29:33):
I think Cheryl had a good point. I had not
thought about it until she brought it up. A man
to go. She's let everyone else do the thirty work
on this. She didn't have her hands personally tied in
with this, and it doesn't necessarily mean that she is
a not a death penalty candidate. But I think between that,
I think between her mental state, which has been well documented,
(29:53):
not excusable of the crimes, but well documented, and the
fact that she wasn't hands on, that might be some
of the motivation behind the prosecution not seeking the death
penalty on her, although she very much deserves it. Man
to Nate Ayton, I cannot imagine seeking the death penalty
on Chad day Bail and not on Laurie Vallo. Yeah,
(30:15):
you would think that it would be the same, especially
because as I mentioned that, the prosecution has set all
along the evidence is the same but charges are the same,
the witnesses are the same, unless they plan to work
out some sort of agreement with Laurie, if Lorie flips
on Chad, or they have far more evidence with Chad.
I do know and have been told on good authority,
that Chad spends every day in jail in a little
(30:38):
room with a laptop it's not connected to the internet,
going through all of the evidence. He's going through it,
so he himself is involved in his defense while his
attorney is also preparing to defend this death penalty case.
Then you've got the whole issue of Tammy day bail.
Take a list of our cut twenty three from KSLTV.
(30:59):
Tammy had allegedly died in her sleep. They found her
in bed, They didn't know the causes. Mandy wasn't shock.
I talked to her the day before she died, she says.
During that last visit with Tammy, something fell to off
and she seemed maybe kind of frustrated, and that wasn't
(31:20):
typical for her. Things got strangers. Mandy and multiple friends
tell KASO that Tammy's husband, Chad day Bell, refused to
have an autopsy performed. With so many investigations now involving Chad.
Mandy hopes to find closure for her friend. I just
can't help but think that I want to know what
happened to Tammy? To you, Nate Eton? What is the
(31:42):
status the Tammy Daybell death? Tammy day Bell has reportedly
died from asphyxiation in her sleep, well in her sleep,
perfectly healthy, training for a marathon, and she dies in
her sleep. And isn't it true? Nate Aton. Just before
she died in her sleep, her husband, Shan day Bell,
(32:06):
now married to cult Mom, said that he had a
vision that Tammy was going to die. He went into
Tammy he one day, about two weeks before her death
and said, Grandpa has appeared to me. You need to
go see your family. And their family and her family
lived about four hours away driving and Tammy never made
(32:26):
that drive alone. They always went as a family or
with Chad, and Chad was really insisting you need to
go see your family. So Tammy got in the car,
she drove down by herself on a Friday night, spent
the evening with her family, and then drove home. And
when she got home she was fine. And evidence later
(32:46):
revealed that has been releases that Chad thought that Tammy
might die, or said that Tammy might die in a
car crash during that trip, and when that did not happen,
two weeks later, she died in her sleep, quote unquote.
Her family says, looking back now that was she really
a blessing to them. They were able to spend that
time with just Tammy while all of this other stuff
was happening, while Chad had a secret phone that he
(33:08):
was texting Laurie on while Tammy's down with her family
saying that Tammy's gonna die. Tammy's gonna die. Well, she
didn't on that trip, but unfortunately she did two weeks later.
I know quickly after Tammy day Bill's death did he
marry called on Laurie Valet. Within two weeks. She died
on a Saturday. She was buried on a Tuesday. He
(33:31):
left a funeral quickly after it was over, and within
two weeks he was in Hawaii married to Laurie Dabo,
with nobody else there Laurie Vale, nobody else on the beach,
just the two of them. In a photographer Cheryl McCollum,
do you ever expect charges and the Tammy day Bill death?
I do absolutely, because again Nancy. Let's just look what
(33:53):
all Laurie Valo has done. She has wabbed this whole
evil net herself. So she's the one that starts reading
these books by Chad day Bell. She goes and meets
with him, She moves to his state. She convinces him
to help get rid of the children and their bodies
in his own backyard. She did all of that again
(34:17):
believing I'm gonna be you know, okay, because I didn't
really touch any of this. He did, and my brother did.
My brother nobody can do anything with him. He can't
be a witness or nothing, because now he's dead. But
remember if you back up, she threatened her husband, Charles.
She's the one talk about the spider to the fly.
He's supposed to pick JJ up for school. She got
(34:40):
him to walk right into that trap when he's shot
by her brother. She's the one that got conflicting. Yes,
but how he was shot, Yes, but Tylie said it
was self devince as well. That's another reason I believe
she was treated different, because I believe she said as
a sixteen year old, I'm gonna tell she was the
(35:02):
only witness. She and JJ they knew what had happened,
and that all the witnesses are dead. I just don't
understand why they would not seek the DP death penalty
on cult mom. She's the one connected to all these people.
It's not Chad day Bell's children that are dead, it's
(35:23):
her children, it's her ex husband, So why are they
seeking the DP on him and not her. Plus we
have reason to believe her husband, her brother Alex, was
the killer of at least JJ, if not JJ and
Tyley Nancy. I honestly think perhaps they're waiting until she
(35:45):
was released from the hospital and is capable again. Maybe
they were just waiting until that happened. To add this
additional level to this whole trial. I see no reason
that she should not be you know, given the death penalty.
If there was ever a case that begged for it,
it is this case. To trap your children in such
(36:08):
a way to not search for them, to while they're
missing and we know now dead, you're buying a wedding
dress with your dead husband's card. Now you're using your
dead daughter's a debit card to go to Hawaii and
live like you want to when you're literally on the run.
I mean, she didn't go there to get married only
she went there to again cover herself from somebody not
(36:31):
being able to testify against her, and to be on
the run, not using her own money. Money continues to
be a motivating factor with this woman, Nate Eton. Originally
the judge had these two being tried together, claiming that
and he's right to this extent, that it was a
common scheme, common course of conduct, the same facts, the
(36:54):
same witnesses, so they should be tried together. But now
that the DP death pilties be sought on Chad day Bell,
I think that changes everything. I think the two are
going to be severed and tried separately because there is
a constitutional issue. Under the Constitution of the sixth Amendment,
you have a right, of course to a lawyer. You
(37:16):
have a right to call witnesses in your behalf and
to cross examine witnesses against you. You have the right
to cross examination in the constitution. So if they're tried together,
what if Chad day Bell tries to call called Mom
Laurie Valo, he can't because she cannot be cross examined.
(37:38):
And likewise, if the state tries to use her as
a witness against him she's on trial, they can't call
her to the stand. So I have a very difficult
time with the two of them being tried together. We've
gotten this far, don't screw it up by not severing
the cases. Plus, if they're both going to finally ultimately
(38:02):
be subjected to the death penalty, they've got to be
tried separately to preserve any conviction on appeal. Right now,
has the jurisdiction, Has the venue been changed, Nate, it has.
It's been changed from Fremont County, which is on one
side of the state, to the Ada County, which is
our in our capital Boise, about four or five hours away.
(38:23):
The cost is going to be enormous, according to prosecutors,
because this is such a small county where these crimes happened.
That to transfer witnesses over staffing issues. So the prosecutor
is going to ask next week, on the same day
that Laurie's arraigned, he's going to ask that jurors actually
be bucked in and sequestered here in eastern Idaho. And
(38:45):
that could be an interesting decision. Okay, now, wait a minute,
wait a minute, let me just analyze what you just said.
That's a great alternative, because the whole point of changing
venue is to get a fair and impartial jury. If
you could get that jury in this distant reisdiction and
bring them to roll the witnesses are that would be
much more economical. And then moving all the witnesses, the judge,
(39:09):
everybody to another location be a lot more simple. So
that's on the table. When are we going to find
out if the state, now that she's been declared competent
stand trial? When are we going to find out if
the state is going to seek the DP on her
when Laurie appears next Tuesday. From that moment, the state
has sixty days to declare if they will pursue the
(39:31):
death penalty, and I'll be honest, in a lot of cases,
they automatically will file that and say yes, we're going
to pursue it, because then they can take it off
the table later as a bargaining tool or if they
decide not to do it, but you can't add it
on after sixty days. So it's likely that they will
do that. And as far as your point about tying
them together, Nancy, everything's kind of been a wait and
(39:53):
see game with Laurie being in the state hospital. Now
that she's out, why do you keep referring to her
on a first day basis, what do you think she's
inviting you over after the trial? Well, I'd love to
talk with her. I'd love to talk with her, and
if she is now, now that she's competent, now that
the case has no longer stayed, you could see a
lot of moving pieces happen where things you know it's
(40:14):
about it's about to get I just do not understand
trying him with a DP and not her. She had
the ultimate duty for their safe keeping. She is their mother,
or was until she had them murdered. We wait as
just as sunfalls, Nancy Grace comes story, signing off good
(40:35):
bye friend,
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace in the last hours a
major decision in the cult Mom Laurie Valo case. As
you will recall, Valo led police on a wild goose
chase trying to find her children JJ entirely was much
(00:29):
much later that their remains, dismembered, burned, buried in a
pet cemetery were found. I Meanancy Grace, this is Crime Stories.
Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation
and Serious M one eleven. Guess what cult Mom is
going to trial? Take a listen to this. Finally we
(00:52):
will see Laurie Valobar reigned on charges of first degree
murder in conspiracy to commit murder. Her court appearance is
set for next two day in the Fremont County Courthouse
of Idaho, the first time she'll be seen in court
since last May when she was indicted by a grand jury.
So here's what's happening now. According to the court order,
Valo's competency is now restored, she's fit to proceed, and
(01:14):
she will no longer be in the custody of the
Department of Health and Welfare. Transferred from an Idaho State
hospital to the Fremont County Sheriff ahead of her raiment.
Since last June, Valo has been deemed incompetent for more
than two hundred and seventy days. She's been treated until
she could be restored. Prosecutors in Idaho say she and
her husband and codefend and Chad daybel used their religious
(01:34):
beliefs to justify the killings of her two kids, seven
year old JJ Valo and sixteen year old Tyleye Ryan,
along with Daybelle's first wife, Tammy Daybell. Tammy sudden death
happened in the October in October of twenty nineteen in
the Daybell home. The children's remains were found on Daybell's
property in June of twenty twenty, about nine months after
their disappearance. You're here in your friend, said Fox Tan,
(01:55):
And you heard right. It's been months and months and
months on hold, waiting for justice in the murders of
this little boy JJ and big sister Tiley at the
hands according to police of Mommy Coltman Laurie Vallo, and
her brand new husband, I think husband number four, Chad
(02:17):
day Bell, the doomsday prophet who predicted the end of
the world with me and I'll star panel to make
sense of what we know. James shell Nutt twenty seven
years metro major case detective, former SWAT, now lawyer with
a shell Nutt Law firm. Karen start Were now psychologists
joining us out of New York at Karen Stark dot com.
(02:40):
Karen with a see Joseph Scott Morgan, Professor Forensics, Jacksonville
State University and author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon.
He's the star of a brand new hit series, Bodybags
with Joseph Scott Morgan on iHeart Cheryl McCollum, Founder and
Director of the Cold Case Research Institute at Coaldcase Crimes
dot org. But first to a very special guest I
(03:03):
now called a friend and colleague who has been on
this case from the beginning. One of my favorite things
he ever did was when cult mom Laurie Valoe, while
her children were missing, orders a wedding dress, a beach
(03:24):
b Eah beach wedding dress online on her husband's Amazon
account after he's dead, wait, wait, before he's dead, and
takes off to Hawaii and has a beach wedding. So
(03:47):
either she's clairvoyant or she's a killer. All right, While
she said Hawaii, she's hounded by the press, and you
see this hand appear over and over chasing Lorie Value, say,
where are your children? Aren't you worried about your children?
Are they here? Do you have them hidden away somewhere?
(04:07):
That was Nate Eden. Nate Eaton followed this woman all
the way to Hawaii. Nate Eaton joining me right now,
news director East Idaho News dot Com. Nate Eden. This
has been a long row to hoe, has it not. Yeah,
we're looking at over two years now now, two years, yes,
(04:30):
two years. It's actually nearly two and a half since
that JJ Enthighly were killed. They weren't just killed. They
weren't killed because you know, there's five ways to die,
all right, according to medical examiners. I mean, there's a
million ways you can be killed. But there's suicide, there
(04:50):
is accident, there's natural death, there's undetermined, and there's homicide.
All right. They were murdered. They didn't just fall into
a shallow grave on their new step dad's property in
the pet cemetery. They were murdered. Go ahead. The condition
(05:13):
of their bodies, you might recall Nancy two grafted to
even describe, but no, no, it's not, No, it's not
because a jury's going to hear it, and our listeners
are going to hear it. So tell them how these
two children were found. Hylee was found in pieces. She
had been dismembered, she had been burned. They were sifting
(05:33):
through dirt looking for bone fragments. That's how horrific her
body condition was. Everybody, remember this was a teen girl,
just sixteen years old, Tyleie Ryan, And you heard Nate
ate and say dismembered, burned, digging sifting through dirt, trying
(05:57):
to find bone fragments, piece of tiley, all right, go ahead,
And they were actually able to find a piece of
her tissue, which is how they were able to identify her.
And JJ, the cute little boy was found wrapped in
tight plastic and duct tape. That was duct tape across
(06:18):
his head, across his wrists, wearing his red pajama pans
that he had gone to bed in the night before.
So there was obviously, or it appeared, some thoughts that
went into this as to what happened. And you mentioned,
Nancy that it's been a long road two hundred and
seventy days since Laurie was declared incompetent and that decision
(06:39):
her attorney filed that motion at the time of her incompetency,
two days after the indictment came down. So she sat
in jail for over a year on other charges that
weren't as serious. But then once those murder charges came down,
suddenly her attorney filed emotion saying, wait, my client is
no longer competent. She was sent away to a state hospital.
(07:01):
That's what we call a hail, Mary, explain it shall not.
Let's called a hill Mary, because you know that your
blind is guilty, You know that your client is the
subject of a national media trial, and you know your
client's going to prison, and you just throw anything up
the skill of stick or worse, prison or worse. Now,
let me understand, there are seeking the death penalty on
(07:24):
the new husband, Chad day Bill, the stepfather. Why not
ult mom Laurie Valley. Well, they haven't said if they
are are not. What has to happen is when she
is arranged next week. At that moment she is arraigned,
they have sixty days in Idaho to declare whether they're
going to pursue it on her or not. So because
Chad was arragned last year, they've already declared that. The
(07:45):
interesting thing to note is that attorney I mentioned who
had Laurie, who declared the incompetency. He's off the case.
Oh what happened to him? The judge disqualified him because
he originally represented both Chad and Laurie, and you can't
represent two people in a conspiracy case. Laurie's new attorney
is a public defender who has done multiple death penalty cases,
high profile case. Hold on just a moment, I want
(08:07):
to talk about what you just said to James Shellnutt,
former law enforcement twenty two years on the force. You
can't just pass the bar and walk in, waltz in
and tried death penalty case. You have to have years
of experience under your belt. Typically you've had to sit
(08:28):
second chair with a primary trying a death penalty case.
I mean, when I had my first death penalty case,
it was the murders of two little babies that were
burned alive because of a gang argument, not between the
male members, between the female members of the gang over
(08:50):
some clothes. So they threw a Molotov cocktail into an
apartment and screamed out, let's fry them babies. Okay, that said,
so you can't at no offense to the lawyer, but
if he does not have death penalty experience, he can't
(09:12):
just come in and try this case. No God gree
with you. And the tip off also in addition to that,
is that you're representing two defendants in a criminal case.
As long was their interest stayed the exact same, that's fine.
But at some points throughout the case, if their interest
to urge their stories complete, you think there's gonna be
a favor pointing contest, they're going to throw you off
(09:33):
both cases, which is exactly what happened here. For those
of you that need to have your recollections refreshed. And
oh my goodness, Cheryl McCollum, you've been in the court
with me many times when I said you're on or
may I approach the witness with this document in order
to refresh their recollection. In other words, they were not
(09:53):
testifying to what they told me they were going to testify,
and apparently I had to give them some document to
jog their amory. I want you to take a listen
to our cut thirteen, he said. Katie v. B. Boise
September twenty second, the last time JJ Vaalo was seen
police interviewed Melanie Gibb and her boyfriend David Warwick, who
(10:15):
were visiting Lorie that weekend. They told police Lourie said
JJ had turned into a zombie. The next morning, September
twenty third, between eight and nine am, Warwick didn't see
JJ and asked where he was. Burie stated he was
acting out, so quote Alex had come and taken JJ.
GPS data once again puts Alex on Chad's property that
(10:36):
day from nine fifty five am until ten to twelve am,
paying near the pond. All this evidence started coming to
light around the first part of June twenty twenty. Just
days later, June ninth, police searched Chad's property. They focused
on sites corresponding to the GPS from Alex's phone and
the strange text to Tammy. JJ and Tigley's bodies were
(10:57):
found in those areas near the pond and fire crime
stories with Nancy Grace think back just a moment, Nate
(11:17):
Eaton joining us from East Idaho News dot Com. Nate
called Mom Laurie Valo would tell anybody that would listen listen,
her children had turned into quote zombies and that has
a peculiar meaning. For her, that means that it's her
duty to kill them because she's one of the chosen.
(11:42):
I believe it was one hundred and fourteen or one
hundred forty four thousand people that would go to heaven,
and it was her judy to kill all the possessed
spirits on earth. Yea. She believed she and Chad believed
they were part of the hundred forty four thousand who
would usher in Jesus Christ at his second coming, and
that if you became inhibited by a zombie. They had
(12:05):
the scale a light and a dark scale, and they
would rate people according to the investigators. So if you
were a really righteous, good person, you might have a
score of light nine or something. If you were dark,
you would have a dark score of You would have
a dark score as well. But then beneath this chart
was the zombie level. And they believe they told their
(12:27):
friends the only way that you could get rid of
a zombie out of someone is to either prey it
out of them, and if that did not work, if
you were unable to cast the zombie out of them,
the person needed to be destroyed or killed, and they
did that thing. Teaching Court documents show if That's what
happened with Marie's fourth husband, Charles Valot. He became possessed
by this zombie named ned Schneider, and because of that,
(12:51):
he ultimately was shot and killed. And then Chad's first wife, Tammy,
she also had this possessed zombie and her body. And
then of course tragically JJ, entirely JJ became possessed, and
they were open about talking about this according to their friends.
You know, one of her friends arrived here in Idaho
and Laurie fought out, said, JJ's a zombie. He's turned
(13:13):
into a zombie. He's climbing all over the cabinets. He
knocked down a picture of Jesus that was on the fridge.
So they were open about these beliefs with their inner circle,
and tragically it led to these deaths. Karen, Sorry, you're
the psychologist. Don't you think it's more than a coincidence
that everyone that's quote possessed by a demon and it's
a zombie. Are people that are standing in the way
(13:37):
Chad day Bail having sex with Laurie Valo, his wife,
her children, her husband, anybody that irritated them or got
on their nerves. Suddenly they were possessed and had to die. Well,
that makes me, as a psychologist nanti question what this
is all about, because it doesn't make sense if she
(13:59):
will mentally and so that people were becoming zandies, if
she was schizophrenic and last dating, whatever was going on,
it wouldn't be that clear that it was only happening
to the people that stood in the way of them
being together. Now she is not crazy, and that is
(14:19):
what the judge has just ruled. Take a listen to
you our cut eighty our friends at East Idaho Knees.
This morning, Judge Stephen Boyce ruled that Laurie Valodae Bell
is now competent for trial, meaning her the stay in
her case, the pause in her case, which has been
in effect since last summer June, will no longer be
(14:42):
in effect, and she will be released from the Department
of Health and Welfare custody. She has been in Northern
Idaho at a facility for the past well I would
say in nearly a year, at least eight nine months,
and she will now be brought back to Fremont County
and she will be arraigned. She will have her initial
quart appearance next Tuesday at one o'clock in Fremont County
(15:04):
on murder charges for the depths of her children, JJ
and Tilely, along with Chad day Bell's wife, Tammy Cheryl McCollum.
Of course, her religious theory sound Street term crazy to us,
but she is anything but crazy. Remember when the cops
were swarming Chad day Bell's farm and they finally went
(15:28):
to his pet cemetery. He got on the phone with Tammy,
He got, excuse me, that's the dead wife. He got
on the phone with Coltman Laurie Vallo, and she said,
have they found anything? I believe were her words. She knew,
darn well what was going on? That one question to me?
Have they found anything? She knew there was something to find.
(15:50):
No quick, My husband called me, and when the cops
are just shown up, and I'll say, okay, finally let
him in. What's up? Give them a bottle of water
for beats like, I would never think to say, did
they find anything? Right, because there's nothing to find that
I know of. Well, I think that's a really important
distinction for your listeners to understand. If we were just
(16:13):
all at a dinner party saying, hey, do you think
this woman is crazy? Honey, she's crazy. He's a rat
in a coffee can. However, is she legally insane? Absolutely not.
She wants to brag about, oh, zombies and we're gonna
take care of this problem. But she doesn't brag that
she stopped that zombie, that she destroyed that zombie. She
won't do that. She'll just tell you, oh, zombies are
(16:35):
out there and we've got to do something about it.
The other issue that people need to remember, JJ was
duct taped, his hands, his feet, and his mouth. Why
would you cover the mouth of a dead person. I
believe that baby was alive from that happened to him.
(16:55):
Tyley when she was buried, remember, Chad said a text
message to his wife talking about, Hey, I shot and
killed a raccoon in the pet cemetery. I buried it
in case she saw the ground had been disturbed for
a you know grave. They covered this up, they've fled
and there's no way that she's only crazy when it
(17:19):
comes to covering this crime, and every other time she's
you know, perfectly, Okay, Yeah, you can't have a selective insanity.
And let me ask you this, Nate eaton the fact
that she has been held all this time and the
custody of Health and Human Services, Health and Welfare. Everybody
knows that when you are in the mental ward or
(17:41):
the sick bay, you get special treatment. She has had
a pretty cushy existence for all this time while she
was being evaluated. Well, you could say that with this
particular facility, they encourage the residents that are there to
dress normal and normal street clothes, so she was not
in a jail outfit. She was able to wear what
(18:03):
she wanted. She was able to do her hair, she
was able to do her makeup, she was able to
eat decent food. She did meet with psychologists. We don't
know the content of what happened with those counselors, but
we do know they filed reports about two weeks ago
three different doctors with the Department of Health and Welfare,
and those reports went to the judge. So whatever they wrote,
and those reports obviously showed the judge that something has
(18:25):
changed to get her to this level of competency. Whether
it was medication, whether it was therapy, we don't know.
It will be interesting to see how she appears when
she shows up for her arrangement, because we have not
seen a person you know, you're just killing me, Nate
eight and death, death by a thousand words. I'll tell
you how he knows she's competent. She's sitting there and
(18:48):
the mid ward braiding her hair and making homemade makeup
to wear, the court yacking, having good meals, had being
therapy time, having recreation time, acting perfectly normal. That's why
I would totally totally go to the wardens or the
(19:14):
trustees where she is and ask about her behavior. I
guarantee you she's acting perfectly normal where she is. Nate Eton,
you could be right, Anthon, you could be right. I
would imagine that is the case. And we'll see how
she acts when she comes in. Will she be wearing
(19:34):
that pink lipstick when she walks into the courtroom. Oh,
you're just really rubbing it, an arn't you? Okay, I
got another point. I got another point for you. Take
a listen to our cut twenty one. Now you tell
me she's crazy after this, go ahead. Police in Rexburg, Idaho,
pleaded with the public for help. Two children are missing
(19:55):
and haven't been seen since September. It's now just before Christmas.
That's four months. Joshua jj Valo is seven years old
and described as special needs. His sister, sixteen year old
Tylie Ryan, is devoted to the autistic little boy. The
last known video of JJ came from a ring doorbell camera.
(20:16):
The FBI and the National Center for Missing and Exploited
Children take part in the search. However, Mom Laurie Valo doesn't.
Police say Valo's not helping authorities to find the children
at all. In fact, Valo didn't report the children missing.
I mean, Jess got Morgan, you're the forensics expert, but
I don't need forensics to show me that. In that case,
(20:39):
she already knew the children were dead. They were dead
according to forensics. As she was doing everything she could
to send police on a wild goose chase. She said
they were with their relatives. Cops go to the relatives place,
they're not there. When they go back to confront her
with that knowledge, she has moved out of the home,
(21:00):
left and leaves for Hawaii, refusing to answer any questions.
She did everything she could to evade police to keep
them from the knowledge the whereabouts of her children. That
is not insanity, No, it's not. It goes to purpose
and with her actions, and you can see it in
(21:21):
that initial moment in time when they begin to look
for these kids, she's trying to put as much distance
between herself and those bodies because they are bodies. At
that point in time, she knew that they were bodies.
She knew that those children were buried on that property.
And still and there's a continuation with this illness that
she allegedly has now because let me tell you this,
(21:44):
when this case finally makes it too court and they
begin to see those images of those children after they
have been disinterred, it will send such a shock and
a chill up the bond of the court and the
members of that jury that she knows what's coming down
(22:04):
the tracks at her. You're going to see a dismemberment
of a young girl who has been burned. Her body
has essentially been desecrated. And then you take JJ's body
that's buried on the edge of this dry pond over there,
and he has been wrapped multiple times for whatever purpose
mac had mentioned, putting tape over the mouth. And I
(22:27):
think that there's a lot that can be read into that.
I think that, in my opinion at least, that with
JJ's body, there was there was some kind of reverence
or some kind of weird connection they had to him
compared to Tyley. They attempted to literally destroy her in
death Nancy, And there's some kind of dichotomy there. I
(22:49):
don't know what it is. I'm not a psychologist, but
it just screams to me that these two children were
treated different and there was a lot of anger directed
at Tyle. You know what's interesting when the claim insanity
is thrown around. Let's go back to the indictment. Isn't
it true? Nate eating Nate joining us from East Idaho
News dot Com that cult mom Laurie Valo was also
(23:14):
indicted on a grand theft charge as it relates to
social Security benefits she was getting for the care of
miners after they're murdered, they're missing, Is she still getting
social Security benefits for them? That's correct. You might recall
when I saw her in Hawaii, she had a plastic
bag full of money and bank cards, and we later
(23:37):
learned that those bank cards were not hers, they were Tyley's.
They did not belong to her. So and that was
several months after those children had been killed, so she
had faced with that charge. She apparently continued to get
those benefits long after her children were murdered. So she's
so crazy that she knows how to cash in on
(23:58):
our children's benefits. That's because tile h JJ I think,
would you say JJ was autistic? Was he under the suspectrum?
Was the ADHD? He was on the spectrum, and he
was on medication that really helped, really helped deal with
his his autism, doing really well. And that was another
(24:21):
thing that the investigators sound inside their Talent Town home
is that prescription had had not been filled, so they
were not giving him the medication. And then that that
was so disturbing to the ground to keep cashing those checks.
Cheryl McCollum. When the babies are the children are mutilated, dismembered,
(24:42):
her medically sealed and buried in a pet cemetery with
the dogs and the cats and the the gerbils, she
kept taking the checks. And another thing, what about this, Cheryl,
He Chad day bail. It's charged with this ssurance fraud
for getting insurance on the wife he murdered. Well, let's
(25:05):
talk about why he might have done that. If you remember,
Laurie was angered because Charles, her husband, switched his life
insurance policy to his sister, Kay. Kay gets a million
dollars when he is murdered and she says, I got
nothing for me to raise JJ. Well, that goes straight
(25:27):
the motive. You know you're right, and let's hear from
the horse's mouth. Take a listen to our cut four.
The Madison County Prosecutor Rob Wood. Laurie Daville was also
indicted on the charge of grand theft related to social
Security survivor benefits allocated for the care of miners Tyleie
Ryan and JJ Vallow that were appropriated after the children
(25:48):
were missing and ultimately found deceased. Chad Daville was also
indicted on two counts of insurance fraud related to life
insurance policies he had on Tammy Daville for which he
was the unofficiary and received funds after her death. What
about it, Karen start Oh, I'm thinking about the fact
that people are saying that she believed that God spoke
(26:11):
to her and actually told her that she should kill
her children. And I think about a case like Andrea
Yay where she actually felt that she should kill her children,
that she was a bad mother and turned herself in,
actually called and said come get my children. I killed
(26:32):
my children and here's Laurie val saying God spoke to her,
and yet she knows the difference between right and wrong.
She knows that she should keep the Social Security check.
She knows that she's sending them on a wild goose chase.
That's not somebody who is insane and believes that in
(26:54):
her religious views, her children are possessed and their zombies.
I got a piggyback on that dread. If you watch
what she's doing, she's very careful to let Alex do
the dirty word, let Chad do the dirty word. She
didn't buy her own hand kill them. She also then
marries Chad so he can't testify against her. Then her brother, conveniently,
(27:18):
of course, dies of natural causes too. She thinks there's
nobody that's going to be able to tie her to murder.
That's what she believes incorrectly. Of course, Crime stories with
(27:40):
Nancy Grace Nate Eaton, let me understand right now, the
two of them are still co joined their co defendants
and are set to be tried together. That's right. The
prosecution wants them tried together. He says that the witnesses
are going to be the same, the evidence is going
(28:02):
to be the same. It will save a lot of
money to do it together. There's no risk that there
could be any sort of you know, jury influence by
one juror potentially seeing the other trial. And Chad Davil's
attorney has objected to that. There was a big hearing
held just recently where he said, I want these trials,
these trials severed. The judge responded and said, no, they're
(28:25):
going to be held together. That was while Laurie was
still incompetent, so things could potentially change. Right now, we
know we have a death penalty case with Chad. The
prosecution has sixty days to say if Laurie's going to
go for the death penalty if everything goes as scheduled.
Now they want ten weeks for the trial starting in
January of twenty twenty three. What I don't understand, and
(28:47):
shell nut I want to hear what you have to say,
joining me, James shell Nutt former Metro major case detective
now lawyer. Why would they say the DP on Chad
day Bell and not Lorie Vale I mean she was
the mother. He had no blood relation to these children
at all. He just wanted Lorie Valle. And just so
(29:10):
you know, what a pickup line. He would tell women
that he was married to them in a previous life,
so they have already had sex. Why not go at
it again. I mean, if you ever heard a pickup
line like that, he's going to get convicted on that alone.
But she is the mother. Yeah, this is crazy. So
(29:33):
I think Cheryl had a good point. I had not
thought about it until she brought it up. A man
to go. She's let everyone else do the thirty work
on this. She didn't have her hands personally tied in
with this, and it doesn't necessarily mean that she is
a not a death penalty candidate. But I think between that,
I think between her mental state, which has been well documented,
(29:53):
not excusable of the crimes, but well documented, and the
fact that she wasn't hands on, that might be some
of the motivation behind the prosecution not seeking the death
penalty on her, although she very much deserves it. Man
to Nate Ayton, I cannot imagine seeking the death penalty
on Chad day Bail and not on Laurie Vallo. Yeah,
(30:15):
you would think that it would be the same, especially
because as I mentioned that, the prosecution has set all
along the evidence is the same but charges are the same,
the witnesses are the same, unless they plan to work
out some sort of agreement with Laurie, if Lorie flips
on Chad, or they have far more evidence with Chad.
I do know and have been told on good authority,
that Chad spends every day in jail in a little
(30:38):
room with a laptop it's not connected to the internet,
going through all of the evidence. He's going through it,
so he himself is involved in his defense while his
attorney is also preparing to defend this death penalty case.
Then you've got the whole issue of Tammy day bail.
Take a list of our cut twenty three from KSLTV.
(30:59):
Tammy had allegedly died in her sleep. They found her
in bed, They didn't know the causes. Mandy wasn't shock.
I talked to her the day before she died, she says.
During that last visit with Tammy, something fell to off
and she seemed maybe kind of frustrated, and that wasn't
(31:20):
typical for her. Things got strangers. Mandy and multiple friends
tell KASO that Tammy's husband, Chad day Bell, refused to
have an autopsy performed. With so many investigations now involving Chad.
Mandy hopes to find closure for her friend. I just
can't help but think that I want to know what
happened to Tammy? To you, Nate Eton? What is the
(31:42):
status the Tammy Daybell death? Tammy day Bell has reportedly
died from asphyxiation in her sleep, well in her sleep,
perfectly healthy, training for a marathon, and she dies in
her sleep. And isn't it true? Nate Aton. Just before
she died in her sleep, her husband, Shan day Bell,
(32:06):
now married to cult Mom, said that he had a
vision that Tammy was going to die. He went into
Tammy he one day, about two weeks before her death
and said, Grandpa has appeared to me. You need to
go see your family. And their family and her family
lived about four hours away driving and Tammy never made
(32:26):
that drive alone. They always went as a family or
with Chad, and Chad was really insisting you need to
go see your family. So Tammy got in the car,
she drove down by herself on a Friday night, spent
the evening with her family, and then drove home. And
when she got home she was fine. And evidence later
(32:46):
revealed that has been releases that Chad thought that Tammy
might die, or said that Tammy might die in a
car crash during that trip, and when that did not happen,
two weeks later, she died in her sleep, quote unquote.
Her family says, looking back now that was she really
a blessing to them. They were able to spend that
time with just Tammy while all of this other stuff
was happening, while Chad had a secret phone that he
(33:08):
was texting Laurie on while Tammy's down with her family
saying that Tammy's gonna die. Tammy's gonna die. Well, she
didn't on that trip, but unfortunately she did two weeks later.
I know quickly after Tammy day Bill's death did he
marry called on Laurie Valet. Within two weeks. She died
on a Saturday. She was buried on a Tuesday. He
(33:31):
left a funeral quickly after it was over, and within
two weeks he was in Hawaii married to Laurie Dabo,
with nobody else there Laurie Vale, nobody else on the beach,
just the two of them. In a photographer Cheryl McCollum,
do you ever expect charges and the Tammy day Bill death?
I do absolutely, because again Nancy. Let's just look what
(33:53):
all Laurie Valo has done. She has wabbed this whole
evil net herself. So she's the one that starts reading
these books by Chad day Bell. She goes and meets
with him, She moves to his state. She convinces him
to help get rid of the children and their bodies
in his own backyard. She did all of that again
(34:17):
believing I'm gonna be you know, okay, because I didn't
really touch any of this. He did, and my brother did.
My brother nobody can do anything with him. He can't
be a witness or nothing, because now he's dead. But
remember if you back up, she threatened her husband, Charles.
She's the one talk about the spider to the fly.
He's supposed to pick JJ up for school. She got
(34:40):
him to walk right into that trap when he's shot
by her brother. She's the one that got conflicting. Yes,
but how he was shot, Yes, but Tylie said it
was self devince as well. That's another reason I believe
she was treated different, because I believe she said as
a sixteen year old, I'm gonna tell she was the
(35:02):
only witness. She and JJ they knew what had happened,
and that all the witnesses are dead. I just don't
understand why they would not seek the DP death penalty
on cult mom. She's the one connected to all these people.
It's not Chad day Bell's children that are dead, it's
(35:23):
her children, it's her ex husband, So why are they
seeking the DP on him and not her. Plus we
have reason to believe her husband, her brother Alex, was
the killer of at least JJ, if not JJ and
Tyley Nancy. I honestly think perhaps they're waiting until she
(35:45):
was released from the hospital and is capable again. Maybe
they were just waiting until that happened. To add this
additional level to this whole trial. I see no reason
that she should not be you know, given the death penalty.
If there was ever a case that begged for it,
it is this case. To trap your children in such
(36:08):
a way to not search for them, to while they're
missing and we know now dead, you're buying a wedding
dress with your dead husband's card. Now you're using your
dead daughter's a debit card to go to Hawaii and
live like you want to when you're literally on the run.
I mean, she didn't go there to get married only
she went there to again cover herself from somebody not
(36:31):
being able to testify against her, and to be on
the run, not using her own money. Money continues to
be a motivating factor with this woman, Nate Eton. Originally
the judge had these two being tried together, claiming that
and he's right to this extent, that it was a
common scheme, common course of conduct, the same facts, the
(36:54):
same witnesses, so they should be tried together. But now
that the DP death pilties be sought on Chad day Bell,
I think that changes everything. I think the two are
going to be severed and tried separately because there is
a constitutional issue. Under the Constitution of the sixth Amendment,
you have a right, of course to a lawyer. You
(37:16):
have a right to call witnesses in your behalf and
to cross examine witnesses against you. You have the right
to cross examination in the constitution. So if they're tried together,
what if Chad day Bell tries to call called Mom
Laurie Valo, he can't because she cannot be cross examined.
(37:38):
And likewise, if the state tries to use her as
a witness against him she's on trial, they can't call
her to the stand. So I have a very difficult
time with the two of them being tried together. We've
gotten this far, don't screw it up by not severing
the cases. Plus, if they're both going to finally ultimately
(38:02):
be subjected to the death penalty, they've got to be
tried separately to preserve any conviction on appeal. Right now,
has the jurisdiction, Has the venue been changed, Nate, it has.
It's been changed from Fremont County, which is on one
side of the state, to the Ada County, which is
our in our capital Boise, about four or five hours away.
(38:23):
The cost is going to be enormous, according to prosecutors,
because this is such a small county where these crimes happened.
That to transfer witnesses over staffing issues. So the prosecutor
is going to ask next week, on the same day
that Laurie's arraigned, he's going to ask that jurors actually
be bucked in and sequestered here in eastern Idaho. And
(38:45):
that could be an interesting decision. Okay, now, wait a minute,
wait a minute, let me just analyze what you just said.
That's a great alternative, because the whole point of changing
venue is to get a fair and impartial jury. If
you could get that jury in this distant reisdiction and
bring them to roll the witnesses are that would be
much more economical. And then moving all the witnesses, the judge,
(39:09):
everybody to another location be a lot more simple. So
that's on the table. When are we going to find
out if the state, now that she's been declared competent
stand trial? When are we going to find out if
the state is going to seek the DP on her
when Laurie appears next Tuesday. From that moment, the state
has sixty days to declare if they will pursue the
(39:31):
death penalty, and I'll be honest, in a lot of cases,
they automatically will file that and say yes, we're going
to pursue it, because then they can take it off
the table later as a bargaining tool or if they
decide not to do it, but you can't add it
on after sixty days. So it's likely that they will
do that. And as far as your point about tying
them together, Nancy, everything's kind of been a wait and
(39:53):
see game with Laurie being in the state hospital. Now
that she's out, why do you keep referring to her
on a first day basis, what do you think she's
inviting you over after the trial? Well, I'd love to
talk with her. I'd love to talk with her, and
if she is now, now that she's competent, now that
the case has no longer stayed, you could see a
lot of moving pieces happen where things you know it's
(40:14):
about it's about to get I just do not understand
trying him with a DP and not her. She had
the ultimate duty for their safe keeping. She is their mother,
or was until she had them murdered. We wait as
just as sunfalls, Nancy Grace comes story, signing off good
(40:35):
bye friend,
Host
Nancy Grace
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