Lori Vallow's husband Chad Daybell googled wind direction on day her daughter Tylee, 16, was last seen alive
REXBURG, IDAHO: Lori Vallow's husband Chad Daybell searched for wind direction on the day her 16-year-old daughter was last seen alive according to a testimony presented at the trial on Monday, April 24. The burnt bodies of Tylee, 16, and JJ, her younger brother, were found buried at his home outside of Rexburg, Idaho, nine months later.
The children disappeared in September 2019, and Daybell, 54, and Vallow, 49, are accused of killing them. The doomsday cult members allegedly thought the children were "zombies," according to the state. They have both pled not guilty and are being tried separately. Daybell's first wife Tammy died a month after the children went missing, and the couple is now accused of her death. Daybell and Vallow married weeks later.
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What did Chad Daybell's google search reveal?
Vallow's daughter Tylee's last photograph was shot on September 8, 2019. Daybell Googled the wind direction the same day. He revealed to Tammy his plans to burn tree limbs and that he had shot a raccoon in the yard and then buried it in their pet cemetery. JJ, Lori's child, had also vanished by that point. JJ and Tylee's partially burned carcasses were found on June 9, 2020, buried in small graves in the Idaho house's pet cemetery, as per Daily Mail.
'Looked up what the wind direction was going to be for the next day'
Detective Sergeant David Stubbs described how Google search history from the account chaddaybell@gmail.com was seized at the Ada County Courthouse in Boise. "On the 8th [of September] in the afternoon hours, the user of this account looked up what the wind direction was going to be for the next day," Stubbs said to the court. Prosecutor Rachel Smith questioned if anything about the discovery stood out to him as remarkable. Stubbs said to jurors, "It did because of other things that I had learned and that that's the day that Chad Daybell had said that he was going to burn [tree] limbs and killed a raccoon in the yard." The detective said that the search revealed, the wind was forecast to blow from the south-southwest. This wind direction would have driven any smoke across adjoining fields and away from close dwellings.
'I felt I should burn all of the limb debris'
Tylee was last observed when traveling to Yellowstone National Park with Vallow, JJ, and Alex Cox, Vallow's brother. During the outing, the family posed for a photo together. In the weeks that followed, Lori informed people that her daughter was enrolled at the Idaho campus of Brigham Young University. The messages that Daybell sent to his late wife on that particular day—which Stubbs referred to when testifying—are already part of the record from a prior preliminary court hearing. He told Tammy. "I've had an interesting morning! I felt I should burn all of the limb debris by the fire pit before it got too soaked by the coming storm." He further said, "While I did so, I spotted a big raccoon along the fence. I hurried and got my gun, and he was still walking along. I got close enough that one shot did the trick." "He is now in our pet cemetery. Fun times!" he noted.
'Defendant will remove any obstacle in her way'
Tammy mysteriously died just one month later. Lori and Chad were married in Hawaii two weeks later. Vallow relocated her children to an apartment in Rexburg before Tammy died in August 2019 so they could be close to Daybell. Her brother Alex Cox had shot her husband Charles Vallow dead in July of that same year in a house she was renting in Arizona. Vallow has been separately charged with conspiracy to commit murder over his death and has not yet entered a plea. The State claims that Daybell killed the children as well as his first wife Tammy because they were a hindrance to their relationship. "Remember, the defendant will remove any obstacle in her way to get what she wants, and she wanted Chad Daybell," prosecutor Lindsey Blake told jurors. "The defendant used money, power, and sex to get what she wanted." The trial began on April 10, and the State is anticipated to conclude its case later this week.