Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The search for seven year old JJ Valo and his sister,
seventeen year old ty Lee Ryan, began at the end
of November, when their grandparents had been unable to reach
them for a number of weeks. They called police and
asked them to do a welfare check on the grandchildren.
When police arrived, they talked to their mother, Laurie Valo,
who told police the children were visiting friends and family
(00:21):
out of state. Police tried to verify the information that
Laurie Valo gave them, Failing at that, they went back
to have another discussion about the location of the children. However,
Laurie Valo was gone. That began the search for seven
year old JJ Valo and seventeen year old Tyleie Ryan.
Nate Eaton from East Idaho News dot Com has been
(00:43):
covering this story since its beginning, so has Ellen Killeram
with Crime Online dot Com. We have both of them
joining us today to get us updated on what's happening
in this case. We'll start with Nate Eaton. Nate, tell
me what has happened this week in the search for
JJ and So. Tuesday morning, dozens of police officers arrived
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at Chad day Bell's home to serve a search warrant.
The warrant was to search the property. He lives on
a large lot of property. You know. Police went there
in January and seized a bunch of electronic devices. They
didn't focus so much on the yard, but this warrant
this week was to focus on the yard. Chad day
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Bell was there at the house when the warrant was served.
He went outside. Police immediately went to the backyard. We
were able to get in the helicopter right away and
fly over the house and I immediately noticed that they
were putting up blue canopies, some blue tarps, and they
had kind of a grid area in the backyard near
the fire pit. That's where they were focusing their search.
(01:48):
And within two or three hours, Chad day Bell was
arrested and placed into custody. We didn't know what that
was for. We just knew that he was placed into
And then two hours after that they announced that human
remains had been found on the property and they were
able to confirm that it was two sets of remains
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belonging to children, and according to family members, those remains
are Jj and Tyley, the children who have been missing
since September. So those remains were taken to Boise for
an autopsy, where an autopsy was performed yesterday to get
a positive identification, and right now Chad was arrested. He's
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being held in the Fremont County Jail on one million
dollars bond. Laurie, his wife, is being held in a
neighboring county, Mite, Madison County Jail on other charges. She
hasn't been charged in connection to the death of her
children yet. That could be coming, but right now they're
holding her on the initial charges of abandoning her children.
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A neighbor who has lived across from the day Belle
residence for many years noted that there were a couple
of big bonfires last fall, and then a couple more
bonfires in the past few months on the property. So
it sounded to me like he was indicating that having
(03:15):
bonfires out there was not a regular occurrence and had
just started in the fall and then again in the spring.
Is that a true assessment of what was going on?
That's true. Yeah, that's from what we understand. Chad Davel's
kids moved in with him and we're living in the house.
When Tammy died back in October and the children started
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to use the fire. Pity, they do live on a
large piece of property and they did have an official
fire pit back there, so yeah, they were having fires
in This neighbor did reports seeing bonfires out there, and
the remains were found very close to that fire pit.
They hadn't really seen information as far as you know,
if the children were burned or anything like that, but
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one could assume that something happened. And right now the
case is stealed, so the details of how the children
died the condition of their bodies have not been released.
What we do know is that during the hearing the
other day, the prosecutors said that the concealment of one
of the bodies was particularly egregious. Those were his words,
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particularly egregious. So we do know that there must be
something that was disturbing about the way one of these
children died or was buried. They were able to find
these bodies fast. I mean, it wasn't a matter of
hours from the moment they served astir point to the
moment they had the children out of the ground. It
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was as if police knew exactly where to look. They
didn't care up the yard, they didn't they didn't have
holes everywhere. They went right to a specific place, and
if you were to drive by that house today, you
would see nothing unusual, and they put the dirt right back.
It looks like a normal, average backyard. So I've heard
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that within the past week or so police were able
to take a bunch of tiny little clues and tips
and put them all together into one big, solid puzzle piece,
and that's what led them to the house this week. Well,
that was the one thing we noticed, is that they
only dug one hole, just one hole, And in covering
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these types of story from stories for many, many years,
that just doesn't happen. It was, as you indicated, they
knew exactly where they were digging, they found what they
were looking for. And now I do want to point out,
and you alluded to this earlier, the confirmation of the
identity of the bodies has not come from any investigatory source.
The medical examiner has not confirmed it. We've gotten that
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confirmation from the family members. And obviously we are dealing
with children, we are dealing with I mean, it's an
easy leap here. Let me ask you, though, Nate, because
you have been covering it, You're right, they're in the
thick of things. Is there any chance that Chad day
Bell is going to be able to raise a million
dollars bail? Very very very unlikely. And we know that
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because Laurie has been in jail on one million dollars
bail and he has tried everything he could to get
her out. And when her attorney went before a judge
weeks ago for a bond hearing, it was a three
hour hearing. As he pleaded with the judge to drop
her bonds, he was suggesting that they drop it down
to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. He said that
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they could afford two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to
get her out. Chad has not been working, he has
no income coming in. His books have not been selling,
and so he doesn't really have any money. If he
didn't have enough money to bail her out, I don't
think they have enough money to bail him out now.
He does have different circumstances. He has an extended family,
several brothers and sisters, He has parents, so they may
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be able to raise the funds. Although his family has
issued statements in the past few days expressing their sorrow
and heartbreak for the remains that were found in the yards.
So it's unclear right now who's standing by him, but
we do know that he has not been released from jail,
and you've got to think that if additional charges come
in the next week or so, once the Emmy does
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positively id these children and they're able to move forward
on more serious charges, that bond amount may be raised
even higher. Graham Online dot Com investigated journalist at Ellen
Keller and joining us, Ellen, what have you heard about
the bail amount and how other family members are responding
to the recent turn of events with regard to Chad Daybell.
(07:39):
The fact that the judge ordered him held on one
million dollars bail at the prosecutor's recommendation, even though the
charges that he's currently facing at this moment don't carry
that stiff of a penalty, indicates that the judge understands
there is something further coming down the pike. So I
(08:01):
don't think that we need to worry at all at
this point about Chad day Bell being released. I think
that he's going to stay in custody, and obviously Laurie
is too. Now you have been interviewing and talking with
many people surrounding the story and people in the area.
What have you uncovered recently about Chad day Bell and
(08:22):
his wife who passed away in October, Tammy, I have
been speaking to someone is the YouTuber briv the name
of Tyson Draper, who's who we've worked with before on
the Susanne Morphew case. He is on the ground there
right now and he went to the chat. He went
to Chad day Belle's home yesterday. He had a brief
conversation with Garth, who is one of Chad Dayville's son,
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and he has fun video and we're going to have
that up on crime Online very shortly. He also spoke
to Emma Dave Bell actually her sorry, her married name
was Murray. He spoke to her. He did not court
that conversation, but he related to me what she said
to him. It wasn't a whole lot, but the impression
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that Tyson says that he got from hers that she
had really been wanting to support her father and believing
her father, and he says that he got the sense
from her that her position has very much changed. One
detail that might be incidental, might not be, is that
Emma is actually moving into that home she up until
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this week, she lived across the street with her husband
and their child or children, I'm not sure if they
have one or more than one, And she is now
moving into the home. So Chad day Bell and the
other adult young adult children that were living in that
home that was raided this week have already moved out,
and the family said that this was in the works.
(09:52):
So that's and but I haven't been able to get
any answers on where did Chad day Bell plan to move,
where was he going, and did the decision to move
from that property have anything to do with this investigation?
All right, So there was already a plan in the
works for them to leave the house, which explains why
we saw furniture and other things being taken out the
(10:13):
next day. That's right, the very next day. And I'll
admit when I when I saw the family's saying that
this was already planned, I thought that the timing was
really coincidential. It was kind of it was kind of
tough to not link it to what's been going on
in the home. But this person who spoke to Emma
(10:34):
said that the ausolready on the way and she she's
actually planning on moving into the house. So the house
is staying, staying in the family. But I'm very curious
to know where Chad Dayvill was planning on going. I
know everybody's a little bit different on this, but to
be honest, I don't think I would want to live
in a home that was party to having bodies of
(10:57):
children in the yard, you know, right by where they
were having bonfires. Absolutely absolutely, And if it's true that
this was already in the works it is, I would
love to know. I'd love to speak to her myself.
I would love to know if his daughter is having
any different thoughts about this. Now, Nate back to you
(11:17):
East Idaho News dot Com. Nate eaton what was the
general mood before the remains were recovered. Did people think
that the children were being hidden and that we would
find them alive and well, or was there a general
thought that we were looking for remains. I think that
most people did not believe the children were alive, but
the manner in which they were found, in the manner
(11:40):
in which they were killed or died, it is just heartbreaking.
Here you have Chad day Bell walking out the back
door of his house every day, and yards away there
are children buried underneath the dirt. I don't know how
(12:01):
any parent can function knowing that we ran into them
in Hawaii in January and going back and watching that
interview now, to me is chilly because I said to them,
where are your children? Did you do something to your children?
And they've got a you know, they seem to not
(12:21):
have a care in the world. As we're walking knowing
that they're buried in his backyard, and they know this
while they're on the island of Kauai. It just is
is so disturbing. I was at outside the house all
day yesterday and people were just driving by to look,
and several people stopped and just broke down sobbing. One
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woman had one of Chad day Bell's book and she said,
I came to burn it, but she didn't want to
do it. There She's just like, I want to get
rid of this book. There's flowers, you know, taped to
a fence. There's teddy bears, there's signs, there's been vigils,
there's one tonight, there's memorials. So not a lot of
people in our community knew these kids. They moved here fast,
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then they disappeared fast. They didn't have friends, they didn't
have associates, they didn't go to the local church, nothing
like that. But the community has come to embrace and
love these kids, and I think it's just such a
sorrowful way in which they are found. On the other hand,
it's nice to know that they have been found that
(13:24):
in five ten years, we're not saying, I wonder whatever
happened to those kids, that there is some sort of closure.
The sheriff described it as a wonderfully sad day. It's
wonderful that there's some bit of resolution. It's very sad
in the way that it was resolved. We know. The
one thing that continues to play in my head over
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and over is that they've got Chad day Bell in jail,
million dollars bond and not accused of murder. Here he's
not accused of killing the children at this point, and
as Joe Scott Morgan has pointed out on the program
that in reality, oftentimes the charge of abuse of a
corpse is oftentimes in many states a misdemeanor. But the
(14:09):
prosecutor said Rob Wood said that it was so egregious
that if the facts come out about what happened to
these children, at least one of them, in particular that
it would give Chad Daybell the incentive to flee. That's
the part I can't quite get over. I think he
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was concerning to him that Chad could take off. I
don't know where he'd go. He does have family down
in Utah and a neighboring state, and I think that
they just want to be sure that Chad does not leave.
The other question people have raised is could Chad potentially
take his life now knowing that the walls are closing
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in that he is now going to have to face
some realities when in the past it seems as if
they've been living on their own planets in a way.
And we know that his religious beliefs speak to that
that he believes he's a god, that Laurie was a goddess,
that they are to lead one hundred and forty four
(15:11):
thousand and prepare them for the second coming of Christ.
The world will end in a month, on July twenty second,
and so one would think that maybe he thinks, well,
we'll just wait it out and things will end, and
then when that doesn't happen, he'll have a new reality
to face. So I think that they just want to
be sure that he stays behind bars until he can
go before the judge and go before the jury and
(15:34):
possibly you face the charges. The one question in all
of this that we still don't have any answer to
is his wife's death, Tammy. We are still awaiting those
autopsy results. I imagine that will be coming here in
the next few weeks. That's the one piece of this
puzzle that still is open. And anyway, I think that
(15:55):
that will be interesting and he could face additional charges
for that as well. And then you've got the cases
in Arizona concerning Charles's shooting. In Alex's death, they did
find that Alex died of a blood clot and his lung,
but police were quick to note that their investigation into
that death is not over, so this case is far
from over, despite the big break that came this week.
(16:17):
Just amazing. Thank you, Nate. That's Nate Eaten with East
Idaho News dot Com. Also special thanks to Ellen Killerin
from Crime Online dot Com. I'm Dave Mack, thanks for
joining us.