Chad Daybell Sentenced To Death For Killing Wife And Girlfriend’s 2 Children

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Chad Daybell was sentenced to death Saturday for the murders of his wife and his girlfriend’s two youngest children in Idaho.

The sentence was handed down after an Idaho jury unanimously agreed that imposing the death penalty would be a just resolution to the triple-murder case. The sentence marks the end of a grim investigation that began with a search for two missing children in 2019. The next year their bodies were found buried in Daybell’s eastern Idaho yard.

Daybell, wearing a dress shirt and tie, sat with his hands in his lap at the defense table. He showed no emotion when the sentence was announced.

Both Daybell and his new wife, Lori Vallow Daybell, were charged with multiple counts of murder, conspiracy and grand theft in connection with the deaths of Vallow Daybell’s two youngest children, 7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow and 16-year-old Tylee Ryan. They were also charged with conspiracy and murder for the death of Daybell’s first wife, Tammy Daybell.

During a nearly two-month-long trial, prosecutors said Chad Daybell promoted unusual spiritual beliefs including apocalyptic prophecies and tales of possession by evil spirits in order to justify the killings.

Daybell’s defense attorney, John Prior, argued during the trial that there wasn’t enough evidence to tie Daybell to the killings, and suggested Vallow Daybell’s older brother, Alex Cox, was the culprit. Cox died in late 2019 and was never charged, and Vallow Daybell was convicted last year and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

During the sentencing hearing, Prior asked the jurors to judge Daybell on his life before he met Vallow Daybell, describing her as a bomb that blew him off the trajectory of an otherwise wholesome life. But